


Kidnapping With Intent To Harm

by finefeatheredfriend



Series: Flock Together [1]
Category: Far Cry (Video Games), Far Cry 5
Genre: Age Difference, Angst, Angst-filled deputy, Angst-fueled deputy even, Atheist Character, Daddy/Sheriff Kink mentioned, F/M, If you think this story has a happy ending you haven't played the game, Love, Mild descent into madness trope use on Rook, Non-Consensual Drug Use, Oops, Resist Ending (Far Cry), Rooks dads name is Abe I fucked up in earlier chapters and am fixing it, Sweet, The Warrant, Tragic Love Story, Whitehorse is Rook's adoptive dad and I'll fight you if you disagree, Whitehorse is bae, Whitehorse perspective of events, Whitehorse should have retired, non-con touch
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-26
Updated: 2019-05-20
Packaged: 2020-02-04 16:43:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 26
Words: 66,528
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18608479
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/finefeatheredfriend/pseuds/finefeatheredfriend
Summary: Sheriff Earl Whitehorse has been lonely for a long time. Clementine Williams feels like changing that, and subtlety is overrated. Little does the Sheriff know, this woman is about to change everything for Hope County when she is kidnapped and a warrant is issued for Joseph Seed's arrest. Canon-compliant tragic love story based on the events before, during and after Far Cry 5. Elements of descent-into-madness trope for the deputy.





	1. Don't You Wanna Stay

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Lips Like Tennessee Whiskey](https://archiveofourown.org/works/16768105) by [TheFamousFireLadyM](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheFamousFireLadyM/pseuds/TheFamousFireLadyM). 



> Well, apparently this is now going to be a full-length story. Stay tuned, updates should be frequent. The Junior Deputy appearing in this work is my personal interpretation of female deputy named Charity Rook who is based strongly on myself. If you take the name, please give credit.
> 
> 05/20/2019: Fixed some egregious errors. I don't expect to change any of the story, but if you notice a typo, feel free to point it out. I need an editor. :(
> 
> Timeline so far in case anyone but me wants/needs it:  
> Earl’s birthyear – 1963  
> Nana’s birthyear – 1966  
> Clementine’s birthyear – 1980  
> Earl becomes a cop – 1984  
> Earl starts bull riding (for the thrill and the extra money) – 1985  
> Whitehorse’s Wedding – 1987  
> Charity’s birthyear – 1990  
> Whitehorse’s Divorce finalizes – early 1997  
> Jamila has a kid (not by Earl) – late 1997  
> Earl elected Sheriff – 2000  
> Cult arrival in Hope County – 2004  
> Charity’s Father’s death – 2008  
> Earl’s Heart attack – 2013  
> Jamila’s grandchild is born – 2013  
> Events of Far Cry: Absolution – 2017  
> Events of first several chapters of this story – 2017  
> Events of Far Cry 5 – 2018

                 Clementine Williams has never, ever been a subtle person in all the time Junior Deputy Charity Rook has known her. The wild red-head is a phenomenal hand with a shotgun, and her loyalty and friendship are unquestionable. But, still, the last thing Charity expects Clementine to say as they sit drinking a beer together is,

                “Lord have mercy, I’d like to climb that man like a tree,” while staring at Charity’s boss, Sheriff Earl Whitehorse, a man at least fifteen years Clementine’s senior; the thirty-something year old woman looks young for her age anyway. Charity snorts beer out her nose, chokes, grabs a napkin and wipes both her face and the table where she spilled beer.

                “Wh-what?!” she says, incredulous, glancing over at her boss, who is sitting at the bar sipping slowly on a whiskey, neat. He glances over at them, holding one hand up in greeting at Charity.

                “Rook,” he acknowledges in his dry, deep voice before turning back to watching the bull rider competition on the big screen behind the bar. He, thankfully, ignores the redness of Charity’s face and does not glance at Clementine at all where she twirls a fiery red strand of hair around a finger.

                “Mmhmm,” Clementine says, unashamed as she stares at him lasciviously. “Just look at those wide shoulders. That derriere. Jesus H. Christ.”

                “Clem. That is my boss. And it’s….it’s Earl,” she says, dropping her voice to a conspiratorial whisper to try to avoid hurting feelings. “He’s gotta be at least a decade and a half older than you if not more!”

                “Mmm, Daddy, yes,” Clementine responds, winking at Charity.

                “Oh God,” Charity moans, taking a deep, deep swig of her beer.

                “I’m going to get me some of that,” Clementine informs Charity.

                “Oh, Christ, Clem, he still wears his wedding ring. He’s not over his wife leaving him. Just leave the poor man alone,” she pleads, remembering the fallout from Clementine’s last conquest, Adelaide Drubman. Charity would probably never hear the end of that, from either Clem or Hurk. “Clementine, I swear to God. Do not come on to my boss. He was best friends with my dad and ever since he died, Earl is, well he’s…he’s like my adoptive dad, Clem. He comes over for Sunday dinner. He’s balding and he had a heart attack a few years ago, please don’t give him another one, and please don’t give me my first. Please, please do not, Clem, no, stop, sit back down, goddammit,” she trails off, because Clem has slammed the last of her beer and is making a beeline for Earl. Charity covers her lower face with her hand and stares in horror.

                “Hey there, Sheriff,” Clem practically purrs, sitting down on the stool next to his. He turns to her surveying her for a moment with that kind of quick assessment all law enforcement officers learn to do when approached in any situation. He’s still in his sheriff’s uniform, though he’s off duty. Strictly speaking, they aren’t supposed to drink while wearing their uniforms, but who’s going to report the sheriff? He sits in his brown felt hat and yellow-tinted aviator glasses, his green sheriff’s shirt starched and crisp over a white undershirt that can only be seen because he’s undone two buttons now that he’s gone 10-42. His gray tac pants are also crisply starched with a fine line running down the middle of each leg, all business. He’s been a cop his entire adult life, been sheriff for the past twenty years. He’s older, nearly fifty-five now, and he can be grouchy and crotchety, but Charity knows he is infinitely kind and so just that sometimes he lets things slide because, as he has taught her for years, "sometimes you aren’t on the wrong side of the law, the law is on the wrong side of right." Earl takes a deep, steadying breath, sitting a little straighter on his barstool and setting down his glass carefully, straightening the napkin beneath it with both hands. His face has gone a little pink, while Charity’s has gone fireball red.

                “Young lady,” Earl says slowly, deliberately, “I believe you have misplaced your hand.” Clementine’s hand is resting on Earl’s backside and Charity wishes she could melt into the booth where she’s sitting, or that she could spontaneously combust, or that she could teleport herself out of this bar, but none of those things are possible, so she finishes her beer and watches the train wreck that is watching one of her best friends flirt with her father-figure and boss.

                “Have I?” Clem asks. Earl looks at her over the top of his glasses, all business.

                “I hope you know that touching a police officer against their consent can be considered assault,” Earl says coolly, still staring into Clem’s brown eyes with his storm cloud blue ones, clearly irritated and uncomfortable. Clem slides her hand off his rear and up to his lower back, but does not remove her hand from his body.

                “I guess you’ll have to cuff me then,” she flirts poorly. Earl clenches his jaw, the look on his face screaming “I’m getting too old for this shit.” He wipes his thick, brown-blonde handlebar mustache with a hand and knocks back the last of his whiskey, sighing once he has done so. He turns to face her, which forces her hand off his back.

                “I think I’ll just cite you for disorderly conduct and call it a night, if it’s all the same to you. Rook,” he calls, raising his voice a bit. “I think your friend here needs a ride home.”

                “Come on, now, Sheriff Whitehorse, I’m not trying to harass you, or assault you or play a prank, even. I’m not drunk. I’m friendly. Come on. Let me buy a drink for one of the thin blue lines that separates the little folks like me from calamity and ruin.” Earl sighs, giving her side eye for a moment and leaning back wearily on his stool. He considers for a moment, and then holds up two fingers to Gary Fairgrave, who is trying very hard to keep his face neutral as he listens to the interaction around helping his other patrons.

                “Rook, another?” Fairgrave asks, leaning on his bar to call to her. Charity, still beet red responds with,

                “Tequila, dressed, I’ll need a glass and the bottle.” Fairgrave snorts, but sends his daughter Mary May over with the drink and a smirk on her face.

                “Don’t you start your shift at oh-eight-hundred tomorrow, Rook?” Earl asks, a warning tone in his voice. She doesn’t, in fact her off days have just started, but Charity can take a hint. She downs two shots of tequila, bites her lime, pays her tab and leaves with her tail between her legs, while still looking extremely relieved at her escape.

                “Well, there went my ride,” Clementine says softly, hands now both on the glass of whiskey Fairgrave had just sat on the bar in front of her.

                “Keep it up and you’ll get one in a patrol car,” Earl says, resolutely not looking at her, and instead staring at the tv screen as though the Budweiser commercial playing is the most interesting piece of media he’s ever seen. She’s making him nervous, real nervous. She’s not the first uniform-chaser he’s ever encountered, hell, it’s how he met his ex-wife. He feels that familiar pang of pain in his chest and takes a swig of the whiskey this young woman had ordered for him. He knows it’s not wise, but he’s tired, and he’s lonely, and to hell with turning down perfectly good whiskey. As an elected official, he knows he has to be careful not to offend or overstep, so he’s cautious, but he’d be lying if he said he wasn’t interested. The red-head next to him looks to be about thirty-five, way too young for him, but life’s too short to play by the rules, especially with all the cult nonsense he’d been having to deal with lately. He recognizes her as one of the citizens Rook had recommended to help keep an eye out, to help keep people safe from whatever it was the cult was doing. Too many people had disappeared already.

                Eyeing her up and down appreciatively, Earl takes in the tailored purple plaid shirt, the khaki cargo pants that squeeze her in all the right places. Her eyes are chocolate brown with gold rings around their edges and her hair is a crimson red that is clearly natural, but so red it looks like she might have dyed it with cherries if it weren’t. Her lips are pink and full and smiling, showing a beautiful set of teeth. So, not an addict then, he concludes, cop senses never turning off. Her apple cheeks are dusted with freckles and her skin is porcelain pale, but still glowing as though burnished gold is sitting just beneath it. She’s beautiful, he will admit that. Which is why her interest baffles him utterly. Uniform or not, he’s old, wrinkled, and sports the beginnings of a small beer belly over his solid, muscular frame. But the way she looks at them with those brown eyes, my god, it’s sinful. He looks away, taking another sip of whiskey that warms in his belly.

                “Do you like what you see, Sheriff?” she asks, point-blank.

                “I think you know what most men’s answer is to that question, young lady,” he says, trying to remain neutral while not giving offense.

                “‘Young lady,’” she chuckles. “Not so young. Not so much a lady,” she purrs, and there’s that hand again, this time on his thigh. He glances down at it, but says nothing. For now. It’s fortunate he doesn’t, because she removes it almost immediately, holding it out this time, offering it to him to shake. “My name’s Clementine. Clementine Williams.” Reluctantly, he takes her hand, shakes it briefly, but she holds it, her grip warm and soft.

                “Earl Whitehorse,” he purrs, still cautious, but he doesn’t yank his hand away.

                “I already know who you are. I voted for you. And, of course, I’m friends with Rook.” He grimaces as she releases his hand at the end of this statement. His junior deputy might as well be his daughter the way he took her under his wing after her father was killed in the line of duty. She’s the last person he wants to think about while one of her friends is flirting with him. Clementine takes a drink, turns her bar stool so it’s facing his, her legs swinging gently as she surveys him. “She’s a good kid. But I don’t want to talk about her, I want to talk about you.”

                “Clearly,” he says, before he can stop himself and he closes his eyes for a moment, rearranges his face into a more friendly expression. “Sorry. It’s just…I haven’t had a woman approach me like this in…oh, I don’t know how many years.” He meets her eyes and sees genuine friendliness there. “Are you sure you don’t want to spend your time with one of these younger gentlemen? It won’t hurt my feelings if the hat made you think I’m younger than I am,” he jokes, removing it for a moment to comb his brown-blonde shoulder-length hair back. His hair line was at the top of his head, having receded during a difficult divorce. Clementine smiles a smile so kind, so genuine, it makes his heart hurt a little, makes him wonder only half in jest if he might have another heart attack if he allows this venture to continue. Absently, he does a mental check to remember if he took his heart medication today.

                “I’m not here for any of them, Sheriff. I’m here for you,” and she sounds earnest when she says so, not so desperately flirtatious as before. Clementine opens her mouth, closes it, opens it again, clearly trying to decide what to say next. “I’ve heard you’ve been having a rough time the past few years.” She puts her hand delicately over his own, her fingers toying with the gold band on his ring finger and a flash of anger and then sadness flares through him for a moment before he calms himself, takes a breath, and takes a drink with his free right hand. “I know the cult’s been stressing you out. Hell, they’ve been stressing me out. Give yourself a night off. You’re here to protect,” she continues, wrapping her fingers around his now, “I’m here to serve.” Earl looks over at her sharply, searching her again for motive. “Relax,” she says. “I really do just want to show you a good time, if you’ll let me.” Earl finishes his drink, considers. He stands, tugging his utility belt back up his waist. He tips his hat to Fairgrave who nods to him as he sets down two drinks in front of Kim and Nick Rye.

                “Good night, Gary,” he says, dropping some bills on the bar out of his wallet before placing it back in his pocket, resolutely not looking at Clementine. Sometimes it’s best to leave well enough alone. He makes his way to the door of the Spread Eagle, torn. On the one hand was her age, her unknown motivations, his reputation, Rook…but on the other, he was so very lonely at night, sitting alone in his trailer eating microwaved tv dinners and watching Jeopardy in his underwear, wolves howling mournfully outside. A bit of company for the night… No. No, he was the sheriff. He had responsibilities, duties. She was too young, and…he turns back to where she is sitting, forlorn, on her bar stool as he pushes the door open. “You still need that ride?” he calls softly.

\--

                “Nice place,” Clementine comments absently, mostly because that’s the thing one is supposed to say when setting foot into someone else’s house. She sets her purse down on the hallway table near the door. “Mind if I use your powder room?”

                “Second door on the right down the hallway,” he says, trying to ignore the shake in his voice. He clears his throat and snatches several tv dinner trays off his coffee table, grabbing beer cans while he’s at it and cursing when the kitchen light flickers out when he flips it on. He searches for a spare lightbulb and screws it in quickly. Clementine comes down the hallway, her hair tied back in a neat braid, her lipstick refreshed. Her hands are folded demurely in front of her. She smiles gently at him. Her beauty seems to light up his lonely trailer. It’s like a redbird has flown in through the door. He thinks, wildly, mind and heart racing that he should let her out, set her free before this dingy place steals that beauty. Swallowing, he says, “You want anything to drink?”

                “I’m alright,” she assures him, picking a piece of lint off her shirt. She looks up at him from hooded eyes, suddenly sultry and tempting and he feels his youth come back for a moment, that reminder that he’s a red-blooded American man with a beautiful woman standing in front of him. He stands a little taller, but then twirls one end of his mustache automatically, a nervous habit he thought he’d broken long ago. Realizing this, his hand jumps and he puts it to the back of his head, scratching awkwardly, unsure what to do now. Clementine, bless her, seems to pick up on his nerves and smiles sweetly, taking his hand. “It’s a beautiful night. Couldn’t help but notice you’ve got a great view of the lake. What’s say we watch the stars? And, I think I’ll take that drink. Meet you outside?” He nods, mute, grateful for the respite, feeling horribly out of practice with this kind of situation, feeling both his too-many years, and as though he’s an awkward teenage boy again simultaneously. He pours two glasses of whiskey and steps outside into the cool night air. The city glows far below, a beacon of light in the otherwise dark night. He hands her the drink and sits on the porch swing next to her, leaving space between them.

                Clementine scoots closer to him, their ribs and hips touching. She grabs his arm and puts it around her shoulders. He doesn’t question it. She leans against him and they both stare up at the night sky for several minutes, enjoying the sounds of wind playing through prairie grass and fir trees, the songs of crickets, the lonely call of a loon coming from the lake, a poorwill cry from the forest nearby. Wolves howl and coyotes sing in the distance, their calls echoing off the mountains and the lake. It’s a new moon and the sky is brilliant with stars, occasional flickers of green and yellow, the tail end of the aurora. After a few minutes, Earl takes a sip of his drink, setting it down to wipe his free hand across his mustache. He looks over at Clementine’s silhouette, feeling his heart thundering in his chest. She looks over to him, the glint of her eyes just visible from the light of the stars. She leans up and presses a chaste kiss on his lips. They separate, look into one another’s eyes and he leans down, softening into the kiss this time. He pulls her into his lap and she wraps her arms around his neck, straddling him easily, deepening the kiss.

                “What do you say we take this inside before the mosquitoes take our presence as an invitation to dinner?” she whispers in his ear. He can hear a smile in her voice. He nods and they stand, abandoning their glasses on the porch railing. Earl opens the door for her and she steps through, turning to him as he closes the door behind him. She steps up on tiptoes, grabs the collar of his shirt and pulls him down into another kiss. His hands hover in midair, unsure, and she grabs one of them, puts it on her waist. She looks deeply into his eyes. “Lead the way to the bedroom,” she suggests, her voice barely above a whisper. His face flushes and he swallows hard, but he complies, leading the way, heart thundering in his chest so hard he’s fairly certain this is all about to be over anyway because he’s clearly about to drop dead from another heart attack before anything more exciting happens.

                Earl leads her into his bedroom, the king-sized mattress covered in a simple cotton quilt he’d been given years before by some relative or other. The room is sparse, simple. One bedside table carries one bedside lamp and one bedside book. At a glance, he realizes that to company, the room probably looks forlorn. That said, it does have one large window that looks out over the lake across from the bed. A landscape painting of a portion of Glacier National Park takes up part of another wall, and a gun rack covers the rest of it. The carpeted floor is clean, and thankfully clear of any clutter or laundry. He wasn’t a fastidious person since living alone, but he didn’t enjoy living in filth. Clementine sits on the edge of the bed and unbuttons her plaid blouse, setting it aside, folded neatly. In its absence, Earl can see that she is wearing a thin white tank top that does nothing to conceal the lacy black bra beneath it. He feels another prick of familiar interest and swallows, again unsure. She makes it abundantly clear that she’s still interested when she stands long enough to abandon her cargo pants, and she pulls off the tank top. She sits, pretty as a picture, on his quilt in a lacy black bra, and lacy black panties and Earl stares, flabbergasted at his luck or his misfortune, he hasn’t decided which. Time, and maybe an ambulance will tell.

                Clementine frowns a little bit.

                “You alright, Sheriff?”

                “I’m trying to decide if you’re going to be the death of me,” he admits, resting his hands on his belt. She chuckles.

                “Why don’t you come here and find out?” He steps forward, sliding out of his boots and socks. She leans forward, unbuttoning and untucking his uniform shirt, hands gentle on his stomach and chest. She reaches for his belt buckle and he stops her with a hand.

                “I want to make sure you really want to be here, Clementine,” he says gently. “That no one’s put you up to this, that you don’t feel like I forced you to be here with me.” There’s that smile again, melting him, tugging at heart strings he thought long-broken.

                “Sheriff. Earl. I am here because I want to be here. I am here because I find you attractive, and I would very much like to sleep with you if you would just stop talking like you're yesterday’s news. You’re a fine looking man in uniform, Earl Whitehorse, and I’d be willing to bet you’d look just fine without it too.” Earl’s eyebrows raise, and he chuckles softly, wiping his mustache again, his shirt front flapping with the movement. Reddening, he opens the top drawer of his nightstand and swears softly under his breath. “I’ve got that covered too,” she murmurs. “Just relax.” Clementine pulls out her phone a moment later, cues up a country music playlist and sets it on the nightstand, and Earl is happy for the music as a background sound, especially when her hands go again to his belt buckle, undoing it and relieving him of his belt. He warily eyes her, her hands a little too close to his gun for comfort. She pulls out his handcuffs with a wink and he chuckles, taking them from her.

                “Maybe some other time,” he suggests, the idea of putting her in cuffs feeling a little too much like going back to work at the moment with his nerves all on edge. She drops his pants and tugs off his uniform shirt and he escapes her for a moment to turn the overhead light off. Clementine switches the lamp on, its soft, warm light flowing over the bed where she lies on her back now, looking at him expectantly. “You are beautiful,” he murmurs, crawling onto the bed toward her. He leans down, kissing her gently and the two strip the rest of their clothing off the other, rocking slowly against each other. Earl covers her cheek with his palm, his calloused fingers feeling too rough, too clumsy to be touching such a lovely creature. She grabs a handful of his hair and tugs him down by the neck, rubbing herself against him. Aroused, he thrusts into her hand, a little gasp tumbling out of him at the gentle touch. She flips them over, putting Earl on his back, taking his hat off and hanging it on the headboard to avoid crushing the felt.

                Earl grabs her thighs gently and firmly before she can sink herself down onto him.

                “Hang on, now,” he murmurs, sitting up on his elbows as he holds her up. She tilts her head biting her lip.

                “You alright?” she asks. He half picks her up, flopping her down onto the mattress on her back.

                “Just taking my time,” he assures her, shifting. He settles with his face between her legs and looks up at her. “Is this alright?” She nods, a little breathless. Clementine feels herself let out a little moan of surprise and pleasure when he touches her with his mouth, his mustache tickling in all the right ways. She balls her fists into the quilt.

                “Oh god,” she sighs as Earl runs gentle fingers over her, kisses and caresses with his mouth. Clementine feels her muscles clenching, feels her heart slamming against the inside of her ribcage, feels hot electricity running from her toes up her back and she comes with a tiny gasp of breath. Looking a little flustered, and a little pleased with himself, Earl hovers over her for a moment, taking deep, calming breaths. “You need an ambulance, old man?” Clementine teases gently, settling her hand in his blonde and gray chest hair. He gives a dry chuff of laughter and cups her cheek with his hand.

                “Not yet, but keep the phone close,” he answers. If you can’t laugh at yourself, he thinks dryly, the old familiar ache of unfinished desire and a want for warmth and touch nagging at him. Earl allows Clementine to flip them back over, adjusting himself upward on the bed so his pillow is beneath his head. Back pain at his age is no joke. She hovers over him again, but the look on her face has changed, that mischievous glint in her eye has been replaced with an admiration that scares him a little.

                “Don’t You Wanna Stay” is playing quietly in the background and Earl shudders with pleasure, meeting Clementine’s eyes as he lets her sink down onto him finally, fingers trailing through his chest hair. She rocks up and down on him, little breaths shuddering out of her as he settles his hands on her hips to guide and lift her. Clementine increases her tempo, her pupils dilating, pink nipples erect. Helpless beneath her movements, Earl lets out a soft huff, running a hand over her breast before sliding it back down to her waist. She grabs his hand, kisses it gently, places it back on her breast, kneading her own flesh with his fingers and he moans. Earl leans forward and she kisses him passionately, tangling a hand in his hair, holding his shoulder with her other. He kisses down the side of her neck, thrusting up as she sits in his lap, mouth open in a soft rolling gasp. Earl knows he’s getting out of breath, feels his age catching up with him, but he’d be damned if he gave out this soon in the evening.

                “Slow down, darlin’,” he suggests, and she complies, tilting her hips slow and agonizingly pleasurable. He groans, a hoarse sound that grinds out of him when she reaches down and grabs his thighs to support herself. Feeling himself losing control, he flips them back over with a grunt, pressing into her slow and deep, a hand on each side of her ribcage. Earl thrusts into her rhythmically, making himself focus on a whorled knot in the wood of his headboard, pulling himself away from the sensation of that tight warmth, distracting from fingers clawing down his back. He clenches his teeth when she lets out a little choked cry, tightening around him. She climaxes with a beautiful sound falling out of her mouth and he makes a deep purring sound, tight and low in his throat. He raises one of her legs to set himself deeper and he holds her shapely calf, nearly shattering when she looks up at him with those beautiful brown eyes. Her fingers run down his sides, griping muscle and flesh from too many tv dinners, too many off-duty beers and he blushes a bit, slowing his tempo further, taking a deep breath and wiping his forehead.

                Clementine smiles and arches her back, pulling her leg down and wrapping them around his back, pulling herself up, down, up, down, up, down, until she clenches with a high-pitched sigh and he can stand it no longer. Earl lifts her, his back and his knees complaining, but he ignores them and he holds her, hands underneath her ass, her arms slung around his neck and he lets her ride him with wild abandon, letting himself be fully present in that sinful warmth that invites him to let go. His breath goes ragged and he thinks to himself that if he dies like this having another heart attack, at least it’s a good way to go. He feels a familiar flame growing hot in his belly, hot fire alight from the coal bed she’d been stoking in him and he kisses her again, buries one hand in her bright red hair and thrusts up, up and moans in ecstasy as the fire disintegrates him to ash like a wildfire through brush.

                Earl lies beside her, her leg slung comfortably over his waist, her fingers woven into his. She is snoozing, her head resting on his shoulder. She smells like strawberries and sunshine and Earl knows this is a dream, knows that at any moment his alarm will go off and he’ll wake up, alone again, lonely again, stressed again, hurting again, so he lies here, memorizing this moment, memorizing the curve of her cheek, the arc of her hips, and gentle swell of her lips and that golden-framed chocolate of her eyes. He brushes gentle fingers down her waist and goosebumps raise up on her. She looks up at him, a small smile on her face.

                “Just a Kiss” is playing softly from her phone now and he leans down, presses his lips to her gently, making himself forget all the complications for a moment and just take in the beauty lying next to him.

                “Are you alright?” he asks, afraid to break this spell, or to wake himself from this wonderful dream, but she’s frowning a bit when she pulls away from the kiss.

                “We’re going to be okay, right? The Seeds can’t just take over the county, right?” Clementine is shaking a little bit. Earl sits up, scratching his chest distractedly.

                “What happened?” he asks her, not wanting to press, but he can feel that she is afraid. She snuggles against him as if for safety.

                “They came to my house night before last. They’re still trying to recruit followers. So many people have disappeared. So many strange things are happening. There’s these white flowers they grow. They left some in a pot on my porch when they left. I know you and the deputies have been working hard to try to get the situation under control, but…”

                “But it’s not. Not any more,” Earl admits with a sigh. He strokes her shoulder softly, trying to calm her. He pulls her closer to him, kisses the top of her head, relishing this closeness with another human being for the first time in years. “I got a call from a U.S. Marshal on Monday. He wants to arrest Joseph Seed. I think it might be kicking a hornet’s nest, but…I don’t want any more people to go missing on my watch.” It’s impulsive, and he knows it, but he can’t stop the words before they’re tumbling out of his mouth like a shattering glass, startling and making a mess of everything, but they’re said, the glass is shattered, the damage done: “You’re welcome to stay here until we get this situation under control.” Clementine freezes and looks up at him, her expression unreadable. She stares at him for a long moment and he feels himself reddening again, wanting to twist his mustache, wanting to put his clothes back on with a fury, but she chuckles warmly.

                “And we started this evening with you threatening to arrest me. Must have done something right.” She puts a hand on his chest, looks down at her fingers where they intertwine with his, then back into his blue eyes. “I’ll think about it,” she promises. They’re quiet for a long, long moment and Earl hears his joints creak as he shifts a little to fold one arm behind his head to prop it up on the headboard. “That was,” she says, stretching in place and settling back into him, “really, really good,” she informs him, sounding surprised. Vaguely insulted, Earl tilts his head to look down into her eyes, pasting his stern and unimpressed sheriff face on.

                “I’ll have you know I know how to treat a lady, regardless how long it’s been since I’ve had the opportunity,” he informs her, tone a little defensive. She chuckles.

                “Clearly. I think you may have ruined me for over-eager little twenty-year-olds. They have no fucking idea what they’re doing,” she sighs. That mischievous glint returns to her eye and he prepares himself for whatever she’s about to say next. “Gonna have to let me call you ‘Daddy’ next time and make you spank me.”

                “Absolutely not,” he says firmly. “I’m the Sheriff, not your father.” She glances at him, but sees humor in his face as well and the corner of her lip curls upward in a wicked smirk.

                “Well, all right then,  _Sheriff,_ ” and if he was a younger man the way she says his title would have had him ready for round two. “You’ve at least gotta let me break out the cuffs next time.” He eyes her with amusement.

                “Why me?” he asks, figuring the likelihood of an actual repeat of this experience isn’t high, so he might as well sate his curiosity. She frowns, seems surprised he’s asking.

                “You’re serious?” she says, rhetorically, and he listens expectantly. “Have you seen the way you carry yourself? Have you taken a good hard look at those just, unbelievably blue eyes recently? Have you heard that, Jesus, that fucking purr of a voice you’ve got? Sheriff, any girl who’s even a little bit interested in an upstanding man in uniform should be throwing herself at you.”

                “Oh, come on,” he says, dismissively.

                “Sheriff…Earl…” Clementine waits for him to meet her eyes as she sits up. “You’re a good man. You’ve got a good heart. The way you’re there for Rook? You make me feel safe. Christ. Um. I’m, uh, I’m gonna go have a cigarette,” she says suddenly, pulling on her panties and his discarded white undershirt.

                Earl pulls on his briefs and his bathrobe, thanking God he lives in the middle of nowhere where no one else will see them, and he steps outside behind her with his own pack of cigarettes. He lights hers, takes a drag of his and puffs a cloud of smoke out into the now-chilly night air. He fiddles with his cigarette, tapping the filter with his index finger.

                “Thank you,” he says finally, and she turns to him, looking dumbfounded.

                “Are you seriously thanking me for having sex with you?” Earl feels himself blushing.

                “I – no, shit, I was just,” he takes a breath, collects himself. “Thank you for telling me how you see me. You’re right, even though I don’t appreciate Rook sharing my business,” he informs her as an aside, “it has been a hard couple of years. It’s nice to be reminded occasionally that you’re not such a bad guy.”

\--

                Earl does not awaken to his alarm the next morning. Instead, he is awoken by his phone ringing incessantly long before the alarm ever has a chance to do so. Swearing, he stands, stretches and grabs the phone.

                “Yeah?” he answers, terse before his morning coffee. He swears again after he hangs up and throws the phone on the bed. Another missing person’s report has been filed. He wipes his face, discouraged and furious. The bed is conspicuously empty.

                “Hey,” comes a small voice from the doorway and he turns to see Clementine wearing nothing but his uniform shirt. He can’t help but smile, regardless of the news he just got.

                “Hey.”

                “Want some coffee?” she asks, holding out a chipped mug. He steps forward, pausing to pull on some shorts, and takes the mug gratefully.

                “Somebody else went missing,” he says without preamble. “My offer stands, Clementine.” Clementine smiles, but he can see in her eyes she’s afraid again, thinking of the cult and their visit to her house. Earl has half a mind to go to her house and wait for them to return with a 12-gauge in his hand, but he’s old enough and wise enough to know better.

                “I’ll have Rook swing me by my house and I’ll pack a bag,” Clementine finally says. Earl nods, letting out a breath he didn’t know he was holding.

\--

                Charity pulls up to Earl’s house, taps the horn and Clementine steps out, looking more put-together than Charity was expecting. Climbing in, Clementine greets her. Earl is standing in the doorway, wearing his tac pants, but no shirt. A steaming mug of coffee is in his hand. He raises a hand in greeting to Charity before stepping back into his house. Clementine looks over to Charity, her hair cluttered into an unmistakable “just fucked” style. There’s a stupid little smile spreading across Clementine’s pretty face and Charity rolls her eyes as she drops her Jeep into gear.

                “I don’t even want to know,” she stops Clementine. Clementine chuckles.

                “So you don’t want to hear about how he handcuffed me to the headboard while I screamed ‘spank me harder, Daddy?’” she teases. Charity makes a faux gagging noise.

                “I will kick you out of this car while it is moving, do not push me.”

                “I’m joking,” Clementine says, suddenly quite serious despite her words. “That is the sweetest man I’ve ever met.” Charity spares her a glance, surprised.

                “I still don’t want to hear about it, but, that’s the most relaxed I’ve seen him in years, especially given recent circumstances. You two may be good for each other. Jesus, I know it’s the end of the world because those words just came out of my mouth.”

 

\------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Aside from the work that inspired it, I got pretty inspired when one of my GFH approached Earl at the jail and they looked at each other and my heart melted. I changed the GFH hair color and Clementine was created.


	2. Anticipation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Things are about to escalate really quickly. Earl finds himself with heart ache of more than one kind.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Credit for asterisked segment goes to Urban Waite. It is an excerpt from his book Far Cry: Absolution.
> 
> Please don't murder me, but don't get attached to the dog. You've been warned.

                The young man takes a deep breath, feels the fine muscles down the sides of his ribcage trembling with nerves beneath his padded leather vest. His cornflower blue Levi’s squeak against the inside of his chaps and he shivers, getting a better grip on the flat-braided rope around the animal’s belly and patting it easily on the shoulder. It snorts angrily, banging its head hard against the gate of the chute.

                “Easy, easy boy. Just give me eight more seconds of your time. Easy now, easy,” he persuade, his voice a calming purr. Earl feels his sandy blonde ponytail resting against the top of his vest beneath his hat. It’s itchy, distracting. Might be time to cut it, he thinks as a drop of sweat falls from the tip of his long nose to the black furred bull’s shoulders beneath him. Earl’s blueish-green eyes scan the crowd, seeing masses of people holding beer cans and hotdogs and burgers. He feels his stomach rumble, but he never eats before a ride. He sees little Mary May there, waving wildly, her whole face a grin and his chest warms. He scans a little farther, sees his buddy Abe with his little daughter Charity in his arms and takes a moment to wave to them.

                Focusing again on the task at hand, Earl shifts a little, tilting his pelvis, and adjusts his hand on the rope again, heart hammering wildly. The massive beast writhing and growling forebodingly beneath him was named “Dr. Pibb’s Hellfire,” an enormous solid black beast of all knotted muscle and hard bone, a beautiful Brangus monster with a massive shoulder hump and angry, bloodshot brown eyes. His horns had been ground flat at their ends, but the furious beast rammed them against the gates, lowing angrily. The smell of cow, and his own sweat are overwhelming to Earl. He’s ready, wants it over, a feeling he always has before a ride. Riding is nothing. It’s the anticipation that gets him. The crowd around him cheers as the rodeo clowns pull their normal shenanigans, clearing debris from the arena as Earl prepares for his ride, popping the plastic bite guard into his mouth to save his teeth.

                The tinny, scratchy speakers inside the rodeo arena are blaring Johnny Cash’s “God’s Gonna Cut You Down,” and Earl feels another spike of adrenaline, and he pats Hellfire roughly, ready.

                Earl Whitehorse’s heart thunders madly in his chest and he takes another deep breath, waits for the buzz, hears it, sets his spurs into the bull’s side and they begin, the chute door launching open with a crash of metal.

                The beast flings itself into the dusty arena with a violent twist of its spine. Earl feels his abs tighten, loosen, tighten with every jolting slam of the bull’s back end up and down. He keeps his left hand in the air, slinging his weight with expert motion, making his body mimic the bull’s moves. Down goes the front hooves, slinging up a wave of brown sand and Earl feels his pelvis jolt against the bull’s shoulders, adjusts himself with a sharp intake of breath, keeps his grip on that rope without pinning his fingers. Hellfire slings his mass into the air, all four hooves off the ground, tail whipping angrily. Snot flings from the bull’s widened nostrils, a whirling string that splats hard into the ground just as the he lands.

                Legs clinging to the bull’s side, Earl clenches his teeth down on the bite guard, his neck tensing as the bull slings its rear up, jumps, slams down, leaps into the air again with a bellow that vibrates through Earl’s being. The tassels on his chaps fling around his legs madly, his ponytail swats his shoulders and still, he hangs on for dear life, keeping himself in form, left hand still up, right hand still gripping the rope hard. With a grunt, Earl prepares for the release, knows eight seconds are about to be up quick. He hears the buzzer and bails, letting Hellfire fling him up and then pushing off his haunches backwards, getting his feet under himself so he can land and run for it. Earl barely hears the simultaneous gasp from the audience as a hoof is planted in his chest, launching him back hard into the fence, knocking his breath out.

                Sheriff Earl Whitehorse thinks to himself now, thirty years later, that the massive kick in the chest that had broken three of his ribs pales in comparison to the ache in his chest now as he meets chocolate brown eyes and realizes he’s falling for someone nearly fifteen years his junior. He looks up at the gorgeous red-head riding him and grabs her by the hips, ramming up, up, up into her, his back complaining. He flips them, hard and rough and she cries out in pleasure and exhilaration as he rearranges their bodies so he is behind her, slamming into her with hard thrusts that have her moaning. Earl forces himself to slow, to calm, and he leans down, kissing one by one the little flock of tattooed birds on Clementine’s back. She turns her head to smile at him, shimmying further backwards onto him with a roll of her hips. They’ve been going at it for a while and his legs are tired, his biceps are sore and complaining when he runs his hands gently up her ribs to her shoulders and down her arms to grip her hands where they rest on the bed, holding her up. He presses his left hand gently but firmly into the space between her shoulder blades, forcing her face down into the pillows while her hips stay canted up to him.

                Earl arches his back, folding himself over her in a way that is almost protective, covering her body with his and slowly, achingly pressing in and out of her, kissing her shoulders, heart burning with what he almost wishes is a heart attack, but knows is good old-fashioned heart ache. With a choked grunt, he comes inside her, not feeling bad that she didn’t come with him, seeing as he’s made sure she’d done so easily two dozen times in the past two hours. Panting with effort, he flops next to her, wiping sweat off his brow and slinging an arm over her easily. She cuddles up next to him, brushing her fingers through his graying chest hair like she always did.

                “Much as I appreciate the fact that sleeping with a man who’s had a vasectomy means I can’t get pregnant, you really made a mess,” she teases him, hinting. With a groan, he sits upright, grabbing a towel from the master bathroom along with his robe. Earl tosses the towel to her while he ties the belt of his robe.

                “You sleeping in here tonight?” he asks, hating himself for the hopeful tone that seeps into his voice. Clementine smiles gently, throwing the towel into the laundry basket in the corner when she’s finished with it and pulling her terry robe back on.

                “I don’t think it’s a good idea, Earl. I don’t want things getting…confused. More confused than they are already.” His heart sinks and he nods, trying to stay casual.

                “When’s the last time you went down to your place?” he asks, genuinely wanting to know. She goes still, stops tying her hair back, lets it fall like red curtains around her pretty face and looks up to him, her expression a little hostile.

                “I can go home if you want me to, Earl, just ask.”

                “No,” he says, interrupting her, raising a placating hand. “No, Clem, that’s not why I’m askin’. I wanna know if the cult is still coming around. I wanna know if they know where you’re at. Things are startin’ to move fast. Irene Fairgrave died last week. Drew Fairgrave died this week. Coroner says it was heart problems, but I’m not inclined to believe anyone with one of those fanned cross tattoos. I don’t know who he thinks he’s kidding, but I’ll also be damned if I know what to do from here. No one’s taking me seriously in the marshal’s office except this Burke fella, and he seems like a real loose cannon, a real hot head. A _jackass_ , to put it frankly. Mary May says she’s headed up to the mountains to get her brother Drew. I don’t think either of them are comin’ back down,” he murmurs, wiping fingers through his mustache and then setting his hands on his hips. “And I don’t think this situation is gonna get under control until we can get all the Seed’s at once. Anything else is just asking to kick off a holy war and we’ve got no backup, no help. So I ain’t askin’ you to go home, Clementine,” he informs her, voice going a little rough. “I’m askin’ you to keep stayin’ here, and to be careful.”

                Earl sighs heavily, reaches out a hand and touches her gently on the forearm. She leans into the touch a little and he forces himself not to read anything into it. She’s been staying with him for about a month and a half now. They had discussed the situation and he had suggested she take the guest bedroom he wasn’t using, encouraged her to make herself at home. He didn’t want to force anything on her she didn’t want. People were talking, but people always talk, there wasn’t a damn thing he could, or wanted to, do about it. Initially, she had spent the nights in his bed, curled up next to him, sometimes waking him in the middle of the night like a goddamn angel of the Lord, hovering above him beautifully and wrapping herself around him, waking him up in more ways than just the one.

                At first Earl thought it was all going to stay physical. She was too young for him, too pretty. In his younger days, in his bull riding days _especially,_ Clementine would probably have been one of the young women who let him buy her drinks and danced with him on Friday nights. He didn’t used to be a bad-looking guy, wasn’t now if you could get past the effects of a bit of time and neglect on a body, which Clementine apparently could. So it had started physical, and he had intended for it to stay that way, but then she had made him breakfast, and coffee, and had picked up one of his favorite books from his collection of Louis L’Amour’s many, many Western novels, commenting how it had always been one of her favorites too, and then conversation had kicked off and it was all downhill from there.

                One afternoon shortly after she had started staying the night at his house, Clementine was sitting in Earl’s La-Z-Boy chair, book in hand, with Earl’s dog Whooper sitting at her feet, panting happily, his collar jingling a little with every little wag of his tail.

                “You know that’s an outdoor dog,” Earl says evenly with a little flare of annoyance, thinking of fleas and doghair getting everywhere, but he pats the dog as he sits down with a cup of coffee, admiring both the heeler and the woman sitting next to it. Clem set the book down, and they chatted about the weather, talked about going fishing, talked about how Cheeseburger was doing down at the little zoo she worked for, but then abruptly she stopped the conversation and asked what Earl was looking for from this.

                “I don’t imagine I’m looking for anything,” he answers, baffled. He still doesn’t know if it was the right or the wrong answer. Her face had gone very still and she had nodded, sipping her coffee quietly for a moment.

                “Just wanted to see if we were on the same page,” she explains and she smiles a tight smile that doesn’t reach her eyes. He opens his mouth to ask something, but she cuts him off before he can saying, “I’m on a cliff-hanger,” picking the book back up and then ignoring his presence entirely. She had started sleeping in her own room after that conversation, and while Earl did not consider himself a stupid man, he still couldn’t get the right side up of that correlation or what difference his answer might have made. Besides, he reasoned, he had been married for ten years and he was tired of games. People ought to just come right out and say what they want. Which he would…if he knew what he wanted.

                So now, Earl lies back on his pillow, which now smells like her conditioner, strawberries and vanilla or some nonsense, and curses the day he talked himself into bringing her home from the Spread Eagle. Crickets are chirping loudly outside and frogs croak from the distant lake. Earl stares at the popcorn ceiling, thinking, but then hears a sudden crackle of distant gunfire and he stands abruptly, grabbing his gun from his belt where it is slung on the footboard. He steps to the door, pulling on jeans and a white t-shirt as he does so, stepping out cautiously. He glances over at Whooper, but the heeler is settled calmly in his doghouse, head propped on his front feet, but eyes still alert, ears perked toward Earl in anticipation. Content that no one is in the immediate vicinity of his house, Whitehorse steps back inside.

                “Whitehorse to dispatch, have we gotten any reports of gunfire near Stone Ridge Chalet? Over.” he asks over his long range radio. There is static, no answer for a long moment. Finally, a response.

                “Dispatch, Whitehorse, negative, no reports of gun fire in the area. Do you want me to log it?” He wants to respond, ‘Do bears shit in the woods?’ but knows it’s bad form.

                “Affirmative, dispatch, please send a unit.” He pauses. “Who’s on duty tonight, dispatch? Over.”

                “Ten-four, we’ll send a unit. It will be Pratt, over.” He feels selfish relief that it’s Pratt and not Rook on duty. He knows he’s over-protective, but can’t help it. Her father was his best friend and he’d lost him ten years earlier in a shoot out with a drug dealer. He couldn’t bear to lose her too.

                “Thanks, dispatch. Over and out.” He flips the radio over to the deputies’ private station.

                “Whitehorse, Pratt, come in, over.”

                “This is Pratt, Whitehorse, over.”

                “Be careful out there, Pratt. Call me if you need me. Over.”

                “Ten-four, Whitehorse. Over and out.”

                Earl lies back down, heart rushing fast in his chest, worried for his officer, worried for himself, worried for the whole damn county. He kicks himself for the hundredth time for underestimating the cult, but like he had told Mary May a week before, so far the Cult hadn’t done anything illegal with enough evidence to stick. He jumps a little when he hears a tentative knock on his bedroom door.

                “It’s me,” says Clementine’s small voice.

                “Come in,” he says softly. “Didn’t mean to scare you. Needed to make a radio call, tried to be quiet but...” She smiles a little.

                “You’re not the one who scares me. What’s going on?”

                “Don’t know yet. Probably some kids doing something stupid,” he lies easily. She sees it in his face, nodding. “Pratt’s gonna check it out.”

                “Is Whooper alright?”

                “He’s fine. He’s an outdoor dog,” he says firmly for the thousandth time. She nods, still looking worried, and she opens and closes her mouth. He waits for her to ask, is too damn stubborn to offer again.

                “Can I…can I sleep in here tonight?” In answer, he shuffles over, makes room for her. She hesitantly settles in the bed, which amuses him given what they had been doing for a good chunk of the evening in this very bed. Once on the bed, she cuddles into him and he can feel her shaking. Gentle, he leans his chin down a bit, kisses the top of her head, that strawberry and vanilla scent stronger now, so close.

                “It’ll be alright, Clem. Go to sleep.”

\--

                When Joseph Seed and the rest of his family had come to Hope county fourteen years ago, Whitehorse had given them hardly any thought. They were just some new Protestant-esque group declaring that they had the only key to salvation, just like every other church claimed to. Whitehorse had never gone in much for religion. His daddy was religious and had beaten the shit out of him most nights to remind him of it, beating him senseless to drive home the point that he was going to hell for some sin or other. His mother, wiping blood from his lip or his nose or his cheek would try to comfort him, tell him it wasn’t God’s fault his father beat him, but the way Whitehorse saw it, if humans are all God’s children, maybe it was time to call child services on that capricious son-of-a-bitch. He kept his thoughts about God and religion to himself, of course, especially as sheriff of a largely conservative, largely Christian county. Hell, the county name spoke for itself. By the time Joseph Seed showed up in Hope county, Whitehorse had been sheriff for four years, and it was a job he loved. Helping people, saving idiots from themselves, he lived for it. If anyone ever wondered why they never saw him on Sunday in any of the churches, well, they never said anything. So, he ignored the Seed family, ignored Eden’s Gate and went about his business, patrolling the county for crime and trying not to get buried in the mountains of paperwork this job came with.

                When the Seeds and their followers started buying up farms, and storefronts and houses, he figured that was their business. They weren’t doing anything illegal, or anything suspicious as far as he could tell. He had heard a few rumors, but nothing substantial enough to get him a warrant to explore. Eventually they put a massive statue of their pastor atop a tall hill in the Henbane River valley, and while it annoyed the shit out of Whitehorse when he saw it on the horizon in the southeastern side of the county it was, again, not illegal. They had all the correct permits and the damn thing even had aircraft warning lights on it, so there wasn’t a damn thing he could do about the eyesore.

                Joseph Seed had built a following here, with some of his church members even following him from outside Hope county, all the way from Georgia in some cases. All the men wore long, thick beards and the women dressed conservatively and were decidedly unfriendly. It wasn’t until Earl had his boots propped up on the edge of a dock fishing and trying very hard to ignore Adelaide Drubman flaunting her feminine wiles at him out of the corner of his eye near her bait shop that he even gave the group a second thought. One of them approached him, a young black girl with kind eyes that belied what Earl knew about her, having arrested her on drug charges at least twice. She smelled odd, like some mix of gardenia and vanilla, a sickly sweet smell that suggested to him that she had put on way too much perfume that morning. She sat next to him as he reeled in his empty line.

                “We’d love to have you at one of our services, Sheriff,” she says, without preamble. Even though she hasn’t introduced herself, he knows who she is, what she’s talking about. This is Tracey Lader. He hadn’t known she’d started following Joseph, but supposed it made sense. Addicts were always addicted to something, if it wasn’t alcohol or drugs or sex, they’d fill that need-shaped hole they’d put in themselves with religion, Whitehorse thinks, looking critically over at the thin girl. She couldn’t have been more than nineteen or twenty. He tries to remember her birthyear from one of the times he arrested her, but it escapes him. Doesn’t matter anyway. His head feels a little hazy and he wipes a hand through his mustache and then casts his line again lazily, knowing he’s not likely to catch anything this close to a busy boat dock.

                “When did you find religion, Tracey?” he asks, expecting the question to get a rise out of her. She stares at him for a long moment and he sees her eyes are a little red, unsurprisingly. That smell though, that sweet scent is wafting over him, making his head hurt.

                “About three months ago,” she answers. “The Father saved me from myself. Saved me from my sin. Rachel and I both.” He looks at her from over his yellow-tinted sunglasses, searching her face. He remembers Rachel too, a young girl with light brunette hair and beautiful blue eyes and a serious drug problem.

                “Well, I’m glad you found something resembling the straight and narrow, Tracey,” he says, meaning it. She puts a hand on his bare arm, leaning in close and that smell is stronger, gardenias with an acrid tang in their background now that she’s closer and he can smell it even more clearly.

                “The Father wants to see you there, Sheriff. Tomorrow, two o’clock. Be there.” He doesn’t know how she does it, but her suggestion, insidious and tugging at him stays in his mind, insistent. So, he gets in his patrol car and drives out to the island, parking and getting out, stepping into the church.

                When Whitehorse walks back out of the doors of the chapel an hour later, he finds he’s never been so afraid in all his life.

                Now, in 2018, five years after he had walked into that church and heard Joseph Seed’s persuasive madness, he remembers the words he spoke to Mary May just a week before, before she went into the mountains looking for her brother:

[              “We’ve got preppers, we’ve got doomsday freaks, we’ve got whole families of folks living in shacks up in the hills. No power. No water. Grandma and the great-grandkids sleeping three to a bunk while mommy and daddy make more. We’ve got gun nuts. We’ve got bunkers and compounds. We’ve got free thinkers, anarchists, nihilists, democrats, and god knows what else, but I’m telling you, what I saw up there at Eden’s Gate – the conviction they have, the goddamn power they gave to the words of The Father, it was infectious, it got damn near under my skin. And they’re believers, you know? Every one of them. And that’s not to say a bad thing about them, or to question their faith, but I tell you, it scared me more than anything I have yet seen in this life and there’s not a thing I can do about that. Because, you know what, it’s perfectly legal.”

                “You practice that?” Mary May had asked, eyes burning with anger.

                “I tell it to myself every night before bed.”]*

                The situation was out of control, but nothing would stick. No one would give Earl a straight answer. Those who had the answers were part of the cult and those who didn’t had either left Hope county or were unwilling to help, afraid of being kidnapped or worse. And he didn’t have a goddamn clue how to stop it with no evidence, no way of convincing an outside police force that he desperately needed help. All of Fall’s End’s police were cult members. The game warden was too. With just three deputies and himself left who were not members of Eden’s Gate, his options were limited. He knows that if he can’t take all the Seeds in one fell swoop, if they can’t get a serious, damning warrant for all of their arrests, taking down this church-turned-cult is not going to happen.

\--

                Earl hears the radio crackle on the nightstand and wakes from a bad dream, grateful for the reprieve. He squint at the clock. It's been three hours since his radio call with Pratt. Clementine comes awake with a startle as well, gasping a bit at the sudden intrusion on her sleep.

                “It’s alright,” he murmurs, leaning over to grab the radio. He listens, waiting.

                “Pratt to Whitehorse.”

                “Whitehorse here. What’s the news, Pratt?” he asks standing and pulling on his robe, stepping out of the room so Clementine can go back to sleep, but she follows him.

                “Whitehorse, I’ve got nothing here. Found a few shells in a clearing near the chalet and that’s it. I’ve searched the area on foot for the past two hours and I’ve got no leads, haven’t found anyone nearby, haven’t heard any more gunshots. I’m swinging by your place in ten; they were close. Over.”

                “Ten-four, Pratt. Over and out.”

\--

                “I think we may have our answer to who it was and what they were up to, Sheriff,” Pratt says calmly, but grimly as he surveys the dead dog on the hood of Whitehorse’s truck, along with the spray-painted word “SINNER” down the vehicle’s side. Earl had nearly tripped over the potted plant outside his door when he had stepped out to meet Pratt. His blood runs cold as he stands with hands on his hips, sees how wet the paint was. They had been in and out and gone without a trace while Pratt had been looking for them where the gunshots originated. The gunfire has just been a distraction. Whooper hadn’t even had a chance to bark when the actual threat came. They’d killed him with an arrow between the eyes. “Want me to dust the truck and arrow for prints?” Pratt asks, looking uncertain. Earl scoffs, wiping his mustache in irritation and frustration and grief. Earl remembers picking up the tiny squirming red puppy, its little grunts and whines drawing the attention of its father, Boomer, who had trotted over and licked Whitehorse’s hand with a whine. He had chuckled, patting Boomer on the head.

                “Don’t worry, big fella. Your little one’s gonna grow up big and strong and help me hunt some birds,” he’d said, smiling as the little warm ball of fur licked at his mustache, leaving him spluttering with a warm chuckle and handing Rae-Rae a check as payment for his new puppy, a new friend to help him recover from the damaged left by a rough divorce, a buddy to temper heart break and loneliness.

                “Sheriff?” Pratt asks, drawing him out of his reverie. “Prints?”

                “Feel free,” Earl snaps sarcastically, swallowing his grief for his dog. “You really think forensics will give us the answer we need with Martin working there with that goddamn beard and that tattoo? You think Terry will let a package from our office to an external lab get out of this county on his watch as post master? No. We’re fucked, Pratt, well and truly fucked,” he growls, sweat breaking out on his forehead and under his arms, making him even more irritated. Earl’s emotions are roiling, but he clenches his teeth, forces himself to calm as he sees Pratt looking at him for guidance. He can smell that goddamn flower, that familiar gardenia and acrid sweetness. “Joseph Seed is not a man to fuck with. We’ve gotta have somethin’ better to charge them with than a dead dog and graffiti to stop this.” With a yell of frustration, he kicks the potted plant on his porch into the dirt and stomps the plant viciously until it is ground into paste. His vision is a little blurry, red and green outlines of everything floating in his vision along side a fog of tears for his dog.

                “Wonder why they didn’t hit your patrol car,” Pratt murmurs, noting the lack of vandalism to it.

                “They want me to know I’m under their thumb. I doubt they care if anyone else knows it,” Earl answers, stepping back over to his truck, touching a finger to the black paint. He closes his eyes in annoyance and frustration, grateful at least that he had insisted that Clementine park her Mustang in his garage. He had hoped the Cult wouldn’t find out she was staying here. So much for that, he realizes, thinking of the potted plant, a clear threat. “Get back to work, Pratt. Take pictures, quickly.” Pratt complies, snapping photos on his cell phone and getting back in his patrol car. “Be safe,” Earl tells him, voice flat, staring at Whooper’s body, stares at the puddle of blood leaked across the hood of his truck.

                Once Pratt is down the drive, Earl allows himself to break down, going over to his dog, putting his fingers into Whooper’s thick red fur and letting one hard sob choke out of him. He pets the soft side of his dog’s head, grief and anger burning in him like he swallowed a coal.

                Earl hears the door open behind him and hears a gasp.

                “Go back inside, Clem,” he says, voice trembling.

                “Earl.” He whirls on her.

                “I said go back inside, goddammit!” he orders, feeling a tear drip down into his mustache.

                “Oh, Earl. Fuck. I’m so sorry,” she whispers, ignoring his order, stepping forward and hugging him around the middle. “I’m so sorry.” Clem runs gentle fingers through his hair, runs her hand down his back, rubbing comforting circles there. He lets go, lets himself cry for his dog, too tired to fight it, not caring that Clem is seeing him at his weakest.

                “I shoulda brought him inside,” Earl chokes out, guilt racking through him.

                “He was an outdoor dog,” Clem whispers quietly. Earl picks Whooper up, the body already going a little stiff and he sits on the porch with the dog in his lap. He hears Clem calling someone, ignores it. The sun creeps up in the sky, orange and pink light peeking over the mountains, brightening just the tips of the fir trees rising up throughout the valley. As the sun frees itself from the mountains’ embrace and is fully visible in the sky, a hunter green Jeep pulls up. Rook steps out, looking grim.

                “Sheriff.” He says nothing. Charity grabs a shovel from his garage and starts digging in a clear area to the side of the trailer. She digs for a while, piling a mound of dirt next to the hole. She comes over and sits down next to Earl, touches Whooper’s body. “I remember when you got him,” she murmurs. “After your second term as sheriff. I was still working animal control then.”

                “I remember,” he says, voice rough.

                “He was a good dog.”

                “A damn good dog,” Earl agrees. Clem steps out of his trailer with a blanket, hands it quietly to Charity.

                “Pratt told me he got pictures,” Charity says. “Clem told me about what happened. You alright?”

                “I haven’t been alright in a while, Rook,” he admits. Knees stiff, he rises with Whooper in his arms, accepting Charity’s help wrapping the dog in the blanket. They set the body into the hole Charity had dug and Earl takes the shovel from her. With a final pat on the shoulder, he unclips Whooper’s collar and piles dirt over the now cold body.

                “We’ve gotta stop these monsters, Sheriff,” she says, hands on her hips. He sighs as he throws the last shovelful of dirt on the grave, pulls a cigarette out, lights it, takes a drag before he responds.

                “You find me a way that won’t get us all killed or worse, and I’ll give you a commendation, Rook.”

                “‘Cowards die many times before their deaths; the valiant taste death but once,’” Rook quotes stubbornly, her chin raised in the air. She had always had a penchant for the dramatic. He remembered watching her stride across the stage in high school, a wild, blood-stained Lady Macbeth with blue-studded braces and acne.

                “I hope you got some wisdom to temper that education of yours, Rook. And, you suggest I’m a coward again, I’ll knock you out,” he snaps, letting his temper get the better of him. She takes a step back, eyebrows raising. He’d never spoken to her like that before, and he regrets it immediately, but he still has a point to make. She can’t let her wrath get the better of her. He turns to her fully, arms folded across his chest, cigarette dangling between two fingers. “I can quote Shakespeare too, Rook – ‘There are few who die well that die in a battle.’ Now get the hell out of here and get back to work,” he growls.

                As Rook drives off, Earl finds “God’s Gonna Cut You Down” stuck in his head and remembers again looking out over the crowd, remembers the sensation of riding an animal he knows he has no control over. Anticipation weighs heavy in him, making his heart race wildly. Like that moment of anticipation previous to the ride that had cracked his ribs and left him in a hospital for two weeks with bruised lungs, it wasn’t the good kind of anticipation.


	3. The Same Page

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Clementine thinks she knows why Earl is acting weird. She's never been more wrong.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is probably going to be the calm before the storm. A slightly more graphic sex scene in this one, just fyi.  
> ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

                Something is wrong with Earl. Something more than being sad that his dog was killed, something more than being annoyed because he’d spent the better part of an afternoon scrubbing spray painted letters off his truck. Clementine hoses out Cheeseburger’s exhibit, washing remains of salmon and feces to the drain with practiced ease. It had been nearly a month since that awful night, nearly a month since she had comforted him as he cried silently over the murder of his dog, and something was still very wrong. He was distant, quiet. Sometimes she came to his room, or approached him on the couch, tugging at his shirt or his belt or his zipper and he turned her away, saying he was too tired or that he had paperwork to finish. Something was wrong.

                Her boss Wade walks up, looking stressed, effectively removing Earl from her mind, at least for the moment.

                “Hey Clem,” he says, scratching the back of his head.

                “Hey Wade,” she answers, routing water and filth toward the drain with her push broom before adjusting her khaki outfit and wiping sweat from her forehead. “What’s up?”

                “Been meanin’ to talk to you since last month, and then, well…look, you know Jacob Seed’s been comin’ by, makin’ threats. Just came by again yesterday on your day off. He wants Cheeseburger now. He’s been doing something to the animals he takes. He had a wolf with him that looked like something the Devil created. Mean lookin’ son-of-a-bitch.” He wipes at the back of his head again, sheepishly.

                “Just say it, Wade,” Clem says dryly. What’s more bad news on top of everything else?

                “I’m gonna turn him loose. Cheeseburger, I mean. I figure he’s got a better chance on his own stayin’ away from those crazy motherfuckers. But it means…”

                “It means you’ve gotta shut the place down,” she finishes for him, heart sinking.

                “Yeah.” Wade doesn’t meet her eyes.

                “Well,” she says reasonably. “My house is paid for, car’s paid for. The only real expenses I’ve got right now are food and I’ve got that covered for a bit.”

                “Wait, wait, no, I ain’t letting you go,” he interrupts to clarify, “I’m just sayin’ maybe take some time off until this business gets settled.” There’s a long pause, an unspoken ‘if it gets settled’ hanging in the air between them. “Go talk to Dave and he’ll cut you a check for your next two months of work. You’re a good worker, Clem. A damn fine zookeeper, trainer and tour guide all in one. I’d hate to lose you over this nonsense. Hate to lose you to them.” A chill goes through her. So the cult was now coming to her workplace to find her.

                “Thanks, Wade,” Clem says, pasting on a brave face. “I’ll finish out the day, if you don’t mind. I’d like the chance to say ‘goodbye’ to the big guy.” Wade smiles, a little sadly.

                “You got it, Clem. Stay safe out there,” he urges her, putting a hand on her shoulder and meeting her eyes. She was right, she could see the fear and worry in Wade’s eyes. Jacob had asked for her again. Well. He probably hadn’t been asking. He’d probably been demanding.

                “You too,” she answers. If there’s one thing being a zookeeper allows for, it’s plenty of thought. There are several moments each day that can be considered dangerous, times when you’re moving an animal from one enclosure to another, or training a stubborn animal with long claws and sharp teeth to do something it doesn’t want to do, but for the most part, zookeeping involves a lot of cleaning, which involves very little thinking. It’s actually one of the things Clem loves about the job, it gives her a lot of time to think, to mull over ideas and come up with scenes for the book she has been working on, the one she hoped to publish one day.

                Today, though, she’s not thinking about her book. She’s thinking about Earl. Those blue-green eyes. Those broad shoulders. But more importantly, that big heart, that decent, gentle soul. She had approached Earl because she absolutely had an authority figure kink, no doubt about it. She refused to be ashamed for finding an attractive man attractive, and at thirty-eight, the age gap really didn’t bother her that much. When she had gone home with Earl, she had expected a night, or realistically, a few minutes, of fun and that would be that. He had surprised her in more than one way that night. When he’d held her close and asked what was wrong, she’d felt herself melting and next thing she knew she was living with a man she’d just met, even though it was due to extenuating circumstances.

                While Earl’s offer to let her stay had been surprising, her relief at the offer was palpable. Part of the reason she’d been at Spread Eagle that night in the first place was to tell Charity what had happened, but she’d never worked up the nerve, never found the right moment to let her friend know how fucking terrified she was of being taken by the Cult. She knew Jacob Seed wanted her for her skill with big predators, wolves and bears and cougars. They were her specialty in school, and on the job.

                Clementine had spent the first couple of weeks at Earl’s house in his bed, falling asleep next to him after messing around. At first she almost felt indebted to him. There was an awkward power dynamic here – a younger woman staying in an older man’s home for safety, but he had never taken advantage, never demanded anything of her she didn’t give willingly. She cooked for him without him asking, did laundry, dusted, vacuumed. He would tell her sheepishly she didn’t need to, but she did it anyway, felt bad staying there rent-free with the very definition of an armed body guard. During the day, she would go to work, and at night she’d make sure there was wholesome, homecooked food on the table, stubbornly refusing to let him eat microwaved TV dinners. He thanked her every time, ate with her in his small dining room on a card table.

                They talked quite a bit, over coffee, over dinner, over drinks. Discussed the weather, talked about Rook a bit, Earl telling Clem things that she badly wants to tease Rook about when next she gets the opportunity. Then they started talking about themselves. She is zoologist, she told him. She had gotten a full-time job at the F.A.N.G. Center after an internship at the Grizzly and Wolf Discovery Sanctuary in Yellowstone and a stint at the Alaska Zoo working with polar bears after graduating with her Master’s degree studying ursine behavior. He had looked a little baffled at all that, explained that he had gone to college on a rodeo scholarship, graduated with a degree in Ag Business and then joined the police academy. He had been a city cop once, simultaneously rode bulls for the money and the adrenaline, and was a sheriff now, an elected official, known and deeply liked in the community. He’d been married for ten years to a US Army sniper named Jamila. Earl talks about her fondly, comments on her abilities with a rifle, comments on how she’d found him attractive in his cop uniform when he’d pulled her over for a brake light out, how she had offered to show him her dress uniform sometime and given him her number when she signed her warning citation with a wink. Jamila was on leave from her first tour when they met and went on their first date; she finished the tour just before they got married, narrowly avoiding serving in the Gulf War. They got married in 1987 and the marriage had lasted for ten mostly good years, but they had begun to grow apart, her from him especially.

                Jamila had told him years before that she didn’t want kids, didn’t need them, but he recognized now that she’d loved him so much at the time she’d said it, she was willing to sacrifice anything to stay with him. Turns out she didn’t love him enough to forgive him for it.

                Earl had never wanted kids, had always been deeply afraid he’d turn into his father, was terrified at the thought of losing his temper and laying hands on his child. It didn’t help either that his family line had lost the genetic jackpot. Every one of the males in his family as many as three generations back had suffered their first heart attack in their late forties or early fifties, some of them fatally. Earl had no desire to leave an orphan, or to pass his physical or mental issues on, and he’d said so right from the start. As far as he was concerned, his best friend’s kid Charity was as much a daughter as he’d ever need. They’d been married for eight years before Jamila brought up how she’d changed her mind about wanting kids. He’d refused to budge, steadfast in his decision, and, like a jackass, had made an appointment for the soonest vasectomy he could get without telling Jamila first.

                Earl had slept on the couch with an icepack to his crotch and a beer bottle in his hand for three weeks. Both of them had broken the other’s trust in unfixable ways. This, combined with the emotional turmoil and stress of his estranged father dying of a heart attack the same year, had effectively been the nail in the coffin for their marriage, and they split in 1997. Uncharacteristically, Jamila grew bitter and mean during the divorce. Turns out she was already seeing someone before she had served him divorce papers, and she was pregnant during the proceedings. She had apologized for it, years later, but they still didn’t talk, still avoided one another like the plague. Jamila had gone on to marry the father of her child only a year after her divorce from Earl had finalized, and though Earl insisted he was happy for her, he was obviously deeply hurt by how quickly she seemed to have moved on.

                Those blue-green eyes grow deeply sad as Earl tells Clementine about this, and she puts a hand over his gently, nails clicking against his ring.

                “Still can’t bear to stop wearing it,” he chuckles bitterly, “even though it’s been two decades, twice as long as we were married in the first place. Just feels wrong without it.” Clem had crawled into his lap then, kissing him, distracting him from his sadness. He’d held onto her for dear life like a drowning man clings to a buoy. She had led him to the couch, moved slowly with him, tenderly touching his belly, his chest, his shoulders, kissing his neck, his nose, his forehead as though her lips could purge his pain. She had pulled off his clothes gently, pulled hers off too, draping herself over him and touching him softly. She was making love to him, she’d realized with a start, shocked at herself. She was starting to love this man, this brave, sweet man who didn’t think he was worth anyone’s time of day anymore. It hurt her heart to realize what he thought of himself, hurt her heart that no one had told him in so long that he was so much more than adequate, he was good and handsome, and kind. He was her port in the storm, someone safe and generous and eternally gentle. She was falling in love with him. Fuck.

                A few days after this realization, with Earl’s dog Whooper as moral support at her feet, she’d finally worked up the nerve to ask the question she’d been waiting for the right time to ask.

                “So,” she’d started, slow and nervous, “what are you looking for from this?” she ends lamely, the well-formed, rehearsed version of the question gone entirely from her mind as though she hadn’t practiced it in the mirror at work four dozen times. Earl looked at her as though he’d never thought about it, was flabbergasted.

                “I don’t imagine I’m looking for anything,” he blurts before he takes a sip of his coffee, looking away from her. Clementine had no idea how much seven words could hurt until they were out of his mouth. She mulled over her possible responses, considers putting all her cards on the table, but doesn’t want him to look at her like a crazy person, and can’t stand the idea of stark rejection from him. She wanted him as long as she could have him, even if it hurt her. Decided, she swallows a hard lump that has formed in her throat.

                “Just wanted to see if we were on the same page,” she forces herself to say calmly, though she feels her heart shatter as the words tumble out. She smiles to cover her pain, to assure him that everything’s fine, but then that hard lump makes its way back up into her throat again, hot and painful. Before he can ask anything, or answer, she chokes out, “I’m on a cliff-hanger,” and picks up her book, though even if she felt like reading, she wouldn’t have been able to see through the thin sheen of tears over her vision.

                Every night since then, like clockwork, Clementine had made love to him, trying to get him to see in himself what she saw, trying to get him to see her at all. She’d given Earl everything, her body, her heart, her soul and still he was distant with her when it really mattered, guarded. Sure, he would ask her if she was spending the night in his bed, but he never actually invited her to, never requested that she stay because he wanted her there. That hurt more than she wanted to admit. At five foot six with scarlet red hair and chocolate brown eyes, she knew she was beautiful, but she was so much more than that. She was smart and compassionate and patient. She knew she could have almost any man she wanted, but she had managed to fall for the one man who didn’t want her the way she wanted him.

                Discouraged, but unwilling to give up, she stayed, making love to him in the evenings, sleeping alone and cold at night, making him breakfast in the morning, wishing him a good day, a safe day, every morning before he left for work so dutifully you could set your clock by it. But when evening came and dinner was over, for an hour or more each day, Earl Whitehorse was hers, wrapped up in tangled sheets with her. In those quiet, gentle moments she could forget that he didn’t love her, she could forget that when the cult was dealt with, she’d go back to her place, he’d go back to his life and this would all be over.

                And then the Cult killed Whooper, vandalized his truck and left a Bliss plant as a threat. She’d noticed him acting oddly since then, even more oddly than she would expect of someone grieving and threatened. He had grown more distant, started turning down her offers of sex. He never snapped at her, or acted annoyed, just, told her no and gave some excuse or other. Discouraged, she had considered the possibilities of what had changed, wondering what had shifted, and had finally reached a conclusion: He was acting odd and aloof toward her because he knew the cult had come to his house because of her presence there.

                This morning Clem had made up her mind, had finally decided not to put Earl in any more danger, decided not to inflict her presence on him any longer. She’d kissed him deeply on his way out the door, heart aching at the little lines of confusion between his brows as he left, seeming befuddled by the sudden affection. Clementine had packed her things, put all of her clothes and products in a duffle bag and put it in the trunk of her car. She’d left a note on her bed so that he would know where she was and why she’d gone. She knows the end of this day means the first night in nearly three months she’ll be alone, and it makes the workday go by too quickly, especially with the added loss of Cheeseburger worsening her mood. She bids the big friendly grizzly bear a tearful farewell and doesn’t stop crying once she reaches her car. Instead of turning right out of the drive as she has for the past several weeks, she turns left, drives numbly to the small cabin she’d managed to scrimp and save for and buy in cash two years ago with tears still streaking down her face. By the time she makes it home, she has a headache, dehydrated and sapped from crying. The Bliss plant is still there on the porch as though taunting her. Swallowing, she steps inside, eyes scanning the single room for threats, her hand on the automatic pistol in her purse. Seeing no obvious enemies inside her house, she drops her keys, flops onto her bed face first, and cries herself to sleep though it’s still light outside. When she awakens, she decides, gets in her car, and drives.

\--

                Earl is beside himself with worry. This truly awful day has become even worse. The aloof bearded cultist who works as the county coroner had submitted a finalized report of the second autopsy request Earl had made on Mary May’s brother Drew. True to form, the lying bastard’s report still stated that Drew’s heart had given out, ignoring the obvious bullet wound running from his chin out the back of his head. With no one to pin it on, and the coroner refusing to cooperate, for obvious reasons, Earl is once again at a dead end fighting the cult. On top of that, land lines outside the county had failed today, a new can of worms to deal with and the phone has been ringing off the hook all day, drying him crazy.

                And now Clementine is missing.

                Clementine always beats him home. Always. Earl’s work schedule keeps him at the office much later in the day than hers does, so even though her commute to his house is farther than his own, she is always home first, usually stripped down to her t-shirt and panties cooking dinner for them both, a welcome sight when he walks in the door, regardless of his unrequited feelings. The first hint something is wrong is that all the lights are off. Heart pounding, he unlocks the door and steps in, hand on his sidearm.

                “Clem?” he asks the darkness. There is no sound. The whole area is just too quiet without the jangle of Whooper’s collar, without her sweetly chirped, ‘Hey Earl, how was your day?’

                The sheriff feels sweat break out on his brow and a million variations on what might have happened to her rush through his mind. He wants to call her, but the valley’s only cell tower had been knocked out “accidentally” a week ago. His stomach in his throat and his heart feeling like it’s dropping out his asshole, Earl forces himself to take a deep breath, to think reasonably. He forces himself to search the house first before allowing further dread to take hold of him.

                With a massive sigh of relief, Earl finds a hand-written note.

_Earl –_

_I’m so sorry about Whooper. I’m sorry about your truck. I’m sorry if I’ve been a burden. I’m sorry I brought the cult’s wrath down on you. I should have known something bad would happen if I stayed with you. I’m going back to my place. Thank you for letting me stay as long as you did._

_Yours,_

_Clem_

There’s a lipstick kiss on the paper next to the word “yours” that damn-near makes his heart stop. Snatching his keys back up, the sheriff races to her house, flickering blue and red service lights on, protocols be damned, thanking a god he doesn’t really believe in that he had written down her address two weeks before.

                Earl steps up to her door and knocks hard, heart beating wildly. No one answers and he knocks again, feeling light-headed with worry. He’s worked himself up into a panic on the way over, half-convinced the cult will have snatched her up and that he’ll never see her again. He realizes with a start that he’s absolutely terrified that he’ll never be able to tell her he loves her.

                “Clem!” he yells, and he cups his hands around his eyes while he looks into one of the windows. The curtains are all drawn. Cursing, he considers kicking down the door, but he takes a deep breath, looks heavenward, thinks. Earl forces himself to sit back in his patrol car, switches off his service lights, feeling idiotic for using them in the first place. Picking up his radio, he switches to the private channel for his deputies, hoping Rook has her ears on even though she’s not on duty or on call. He knows that even though it’s a private channel, there are still moles listening in, knows four of his deputies are cultists, knows he’ll have to be very careful. Rook is the only deputy who knows Clem is staying with him.

                “Rook, this is Whitehorse. You got your ears on, kid?” he clamps his eyes closed with annoyance at the tremble in his voice, hoping the radio doesn’t broadcast it very well. There’s a crispy pop of static, then.

                “This is Rook, Whitehorse, go ahead.”

                “Rook, I’m looking for…I’m checking in on someone important. Can’t find the bird in either nest, do you ten-four? Over.” There’s a pause, then her voice answers wryly, catching on to what he’s saying.

                “I ten-four, Sheriff. Have you checked the Eagle’s nest? Over.”

                “Negative, Rook.”

                “I’ll head there now, Sheriff. I’ll status check when I’m there, over.

                “Thanks, Rook,” he growls into the radio receiver. “Over and out.”

\--

                Rook walks into the Spread Eagle, surveying how sparse the population is compared to what it should be on a Thursday night. Hurk Drubman is sitting in a booth in the corner with his cousin Sharky Boshaw, who she recognizes from the wanted poster hanging up not only at the station, but on the wall across the room from where he’s currently frozen, looking at her like a deer in headlights. Though she’s in plain clothes, she has her badge and her gun at her waist, a reminder to any uppity Peggies that she would intervene if needed. Seeing the badge and gun, Sharky goes pale, slams his beer, yells,

                “You’ll never take me alive, pig!” as he tears toward the door. He’s out and gone and then suddenly back in the doorway, face red. “I’m sorry, Officer, you’re not a pig, you’re actually real fuckin’ hot and I’d like to ask for your number, but I’m pretty sure you’re gonna arrest me if I do, so…” and then he’s actually gone, darting across the empty street like a cat with its tail on fire. Charity rolls her eyes and juts a thumb toward the bar.

                “You better cover his tab, Drubman, or I’ll add you to that poster.”

                “Yes, ma’am, that’s no problem ma’am, I’m not gonna cause no problems, I’m just here enjoyin’ a beer and meditatin’ on the monkey king. Have you heard the good news of the monkey king, cuz it is some damn good news–” She holds up a hand to end his tirade and turns away from him and toward the bar.

                “What have you got left, Mary May?” Rook asks solemnly, knowing the Spread Eagle hasn’t been able to receive its shipments of beer or liquor for several weeks. Mary May sighs and Rook notices the dark circles under her eyes, the redness of them, like she’s been crying a lot recently. She puts a hand on Mary May’s and squeezes it a little. “Hey, you okay?” Mary May laughs a bitter laugh and shakes her head.

                “You feeling beer or liquor, Deputy?” she asks, ignoring the other question.

                “Beer, if you’ve still got it.”

                “I’ve got Natty Light on tap, everything else is in bottles.” Rook grimaces, but takes a foamy, light, horse-piss tasting beer in a glass mug. “Opening a tab?”

                “I’m just having the one,” Rook says, reaching for her wallet.

                “Don’t worry about it then, Deputy. Just keep us safe.” Rook’s heart sinks and the stress of the job is suddenly looming now.

                “I’ll try my best, Mary May. And…better open that tab, after all.”

                Clementine is slumped over the barstool where Earl was sitting the night they’d met. She hasn’t said a thing to Rook, is staring at her flat beer despondently.

                “That bad, huh?” Charity asks, pulling up the stool next to hers. Clementine turns her head slowly to look at her, her eyes bloodshot from crying and probably also from the alcohol in her bloodstream. She opens her mouth to say something, but instead of words, a sob chokes out and she takes a gulp of her beer. “Listen,” Charity says, hand on Clem’s shoulder, “I gotta take a piss, but I will be right back. You watch my beer. I get roofied, I’m blaming you,” she says as she walks away.

                Charity strides to the bathrooms so she’s out of sight of Clementine, unclips her radio.

                “Rook to Whitehorse.”

                “This is Whitehorse,” he answers immediately. His voice is tense, tight. She smiles a little, finding his worry more than a little bit adorable. It’s weird seeing her boss and surrogate father so squirrelly about someone.

                “Whitehorse, I, uh, I have the bird in hand. Will return to its own nest when ready, over.” There’s a long pause and even from miles away, Rook knows he’s deciding what to say.

                “Ten-four. Over and out.” Surprised, she shrugs and clips her radio back to her belt. She actually does need to pee, so she does so, washes her hands and steps back out, sitting down and taking a sip of the poor quality beer with a scowl.

                “What’s going on, Clem?” she asks gently.

                “Jacob’s after me.”

                “I know. I figured. I’m not stupid, you know. I am law enforcement, investigating this cult is part of my job. You mentioned to me that the cult had bothered you, and then of course you started staying at Whitehorse’s place…I figured there was probably a good reason why. I’ve never seen that man go out on a date, let along invite someone to live in his house. Anyway. Went by the F.A.N.G. Center, talked to Wade. Why didn’t you tell me yourself?” Rook finishes, tone a little accusatory and very hurt. Clem is staring at the last lazy bubbles popping in her beer.

                “I knew you’d worry if you knew it was Jacob.” Charity scoffs.

                “As though there’s a lesser of four evils in that fucking family. Well, they don’t take people for no reason, Clem. Jesus, how dumb do you think I am? I know, I know, you were my TA for Natural History of the Vertebrates lab, so you’ve got a pretty good idea how dumb I am, but still. Did you forget that I graduated from the same university as you?”

                “You know I haven’t forgotten that, you ass. And you also know I’m the only reason you passed Verts.”

                “That’s a damn lie,” Rook says, but it’s true. Clementine had been a TA for several courses in Charity’s undergraduate degree. She had majored in Criminal Justice with a minor in Wildlife law and the number of aged, crumbling pelts she’d had to study to learn species names and breeding habits and their associated hunting seasons had been overwhelming alongside her other classes. Clementine had tutored her, spending more than her required office hours to help her, and they had been fast friends ever since.

                “I think they killed his dog because of me, Rook. I think Earl thinks so too.” Hearing this, Rook clenches her jaw, takes a drink with an unhappy hiss, sets her mug down. “I moved my stuff back to my place today. I’m not going to stay there and bring more harm down on him.”

                “No, they didn’t, Clem,” Charity says matter-of-factly. “They killed Whooper because Whitehorse is trying to find enough evidence to get a warrant to stick to each one of the Seed family. He’s a threat, and the cult knows it, is trying to get under his skin, trying to scare him off. He’s bound and determined that we have to get warrants for all of them, but I’ll be happy just getting one for Joseph. He’s the head. Take him out and the rest will fall.”

                “Yeah, or two more will grow back in its place,” Clem snaps, tending to agree with Earl’s assessment, biased or not. Charity huffs out an annoyed noise, hums, takes another drink.

                “It’s not really worth arguing about right now, Clem. But if you’re leaving Earl’s place because you think that’s why what happened to Whooper happened, you shouldn’t.”

                “That’s not the only reason,” Clem says finally after draining her beer and indicating for Mary May to bring her another. The bartender obliges and Charity waits patiently, finishing her beer and taking another as well. Clementine’s gaze flicks over to Charity for a moment and then away, her face reddening beneath her freckles. “I think I love him, Charity.”

                “Oh fuck!” Rook yells and the four other patrons and Mary May all stare at her. “Sorry. Sorry,” she says sheepishly, meeting their eyes and blushing.

                “Thanks for the subtlety, Charity,” Clem says dryly side-eyeing Rook as she takes another deep gulp of her drink.

                “You’re one to talk. I’m not the one who approached a dude with the intent to call him ‘Daddy’ in the bedroom,” Rook says, and she shudders after she says it, feels her skin crawling thinking of her basically adoptive father like that with one of her best friends. Clementine starts laughing, and after a couple of seconds, it’s uncomfortable, she’s laughing too long and too hard at something that’s just not that funny, and then the laughing dissolves to tears and Charity takes compassion, patting her awkwardly on the shoulder. “Come on, hey, it’s okay. Jesus, you’ve got it bad, don’t you?”

                Clementine collects herself after a few moments, takes a deep breath, a deeper drink of beer and tells Charity about Earl’s behavior, thankfully leaving some details out. Charity listens good-naturedly, trying not to think too hard about how weird it is to hear someone talk about her basically adoptive parent like he hangs the stars in the sky. Rook waits until Clem is done and goes silent, wobbling unsteadily over her beer before saying anything.

                “Clem, I can tell you from experience, Earl is the most honest man I’ve ever met, but he can also be really oblivious. If you care about him like that, you should tell him. Better to have loved and lost and all that bullshit, right?”

                “You should be a poet,” Clem says deprecatingly, dabbing fingers under her red, wet eyes to flick away tears that escape her lashes and she sniffles. Charity coughs a laugh, but doesn’t back down.

                “I’m serious, Clem. He’s old fashioned. If you like him, tell him, he’s not going to play games or try to guess what’s on your mind. If he’s acting weird it’s because he’s stressed the fuck out. Contrary to all evidence, not everything is about you.” Clem rolls her eyes at Charity in agitation but doesn’t object further. Finally, she nods.

                “I’ll think about it.”

                “Do. If he feels the same way toward you, I can’t imagine a better guy for you to be with. And if it doesn’t work out with him, I’ll be your wingman at the local nursing home.” Charity narrowly avoids a swat, but Clem is laughing and Charity counts it as a win and adds, “But if it does work out, I’m not calling you ‘Mom,’” and she doesn’t manage to avoid the smack this time.

\--

                Charity spent the night with Clementine, assuring her that she would keep her safe, would sleep close to the door. The deputy had scooted the couch partially in front of the door and slept on it, her side arm close by in case it was needed. In the morning, she bids a still groggy Clementine farewell, and heads to work, radioing Whitehorse as she drives away from Clem’s cabin.

                Stretching and grabbing for her aching head, Clementine yawns mightily. She stands and starts a pot of coffee, figures stale caffeine is still caffeine. She stretches again and then hops in the shower, taking her time washing her hair and shaving her legs in her more roomy shower. With a pang, she remembers showering with Earl once, running slick, soapy hands over other another, both of them nearly busting their asses in the tiny space. She thinks about Charity’s words, mulls them over, considers her options. She could just leave the county. She could pack her things and make a run for it, try to escape the Cult and leave. But no. This was her home now, had been for nearly five years. She loved it here, loved the fresh mountain air, the beautiful spring flowers, the monster snow and rain storms. She didn’t want to leave her home, cult be damned. And, of course, they had now started stopping cars leaving the county, creating their own road blocks with so many cult members running them that local law enforcement, the four left who weren’t corrupt anyway, couldn’t do a damn thing about it except break them up occasionally. She was scared, but that didn’t mean she was unprepared. Clementine had plenty of experience with guns dealing with large predators in the wild, and she’d been raised a hunter, appreciating how an ethical hunter could also be a great conservationist.

                So, Clementine cleans her rifle and her shotgun, and her compound bow for good measure, making sure they’re all prepared for whatever may come. She spends the rest of the day cleaning her house, catching up on laundry, mopping, vacuuming. She tries to write, but her mind comes up a blank, its entirety taken up by images of a kind face with blue-green eyes beneath a brown felt hat. She tries painting too, but the hill she starts to paint looks a lot like the one Earl’s trailer sits on and she throws her paintbrush down, thoroughly annoyed at how much she’s pining for him. Scowling, Clementine makes herself some lunch and decides to read, realizes she had effectively stolen one of Earl’s books and feels her stomach drop. Was Charity right? Was his odd behavior no fault of her own? And, more to the point, was it possible he could ever share her feelings? Surely not, she told herself. She knew it bothered him when people knew his business, figures he too had not expected this, whatever it was, to last as long as it had. In an odd way, she thinks, she owes the cult one for forcing them into their arrangement. Clem thinks of his strong hands on her body, the thought unbidden, and it morphs into a recollection of that gold wedding band and she is surprised at the jealousy and vitriol that shoot through her. Wiping a hand over her face, she forces Sheriff Earl Whitehorse out of her mind again, forces herself to read the same page thirty times and eventually gives up because she’s distracted by the smell of Earl’s cologne on the book.

                It’s late, Earl is probably off work by now, probably headed home. She hopes he’ll find the meals she had prepared for him for the next week before he warms up one of those damn TV dinners that were surely shortening his lifespan. She starts washing the dishes after eating a bland can of tuna for dinner herself, feeling too tired to bother making a proper meal for herself.

                Clementine feels every muscle in her body clench in anticipation and fear when someone knocks on her door. She grabs her shotgun, goes to the window, peeks through the lace curtains, and feels her heart in her throat.

\--

                Earl’s heart is pounding hard. He hadn’t gotten much sleep last night, he’d been too busy thinking, too busy beating himself up for hiding his feelings, for making Clementine think she wasn’t welcome or wanted anymore. All day long at work he’d been distracted, filled out forms incorrectly, scribbled over the mistakes furiously, re-photocopied the forms, made the same distracted mistake again, cursing and generally being gruff and rude to Rook and Hudson. Hudson had flicked him off and ignored him for the rest of the day. Rook had looked at him oddly, opened her mouth to say something, thought better of it when he gave her a piercing glare, and she’d found things to do at the station, mostly answering the phones, hanging around the door to his office like a fly at a picnic, there every time he looked up from paperwork, sometimes with a stupid question, other times with a cup of coffee which he took before snapping at her and sending her on some task or other to get her out of what was left of his hair. By the time the work day ended and Earl was headed to Clementine’s house, he had a whole speech planned, but when the door swings open to his knocking, all he can manage to do is blurt,

                “I love you.” Clementine’s face goes white, then red, then white again and he feels his do something similar.

                “You don’t mean that,” she says, finally. Hurt, he frowns, unsure what to say now other than,

                “Can I come in?” Clementine steps out of the doorway and he enters the simple cabin. He stands awkwardly, one hand on his belt. With his other, he removes his hat. For a moment, he looks around the cabin. It is small, quaint, but so very _Clementine_ that his heart squeezes hard at how she shapes the world around her, like a river bending mountains to its will. There are paintings he knows she painted, all landscapes with various wildlife in them, her hobby. On the couch is a Western novel, something by Zane Grey and he realizes after a moment that it’s his copy. The cabin smells like her cooking, homey and familiar. They stand in silence, her face still so pale that now he’s worried there is something seriously wrong. He clears his throat, tugs on his mustache, catches himself doing it, stops, fiddles with his belt and then takes a breath. In for a dime, in for a dollar, he thinks.

                “That is not a phrase I use lightly, Clem,” he says, stepping up to her. He looks her deeply in the eyes, which he can see now are watering with tears. “I love you. I don’t know when it happened, but I know it’s true. I know it hasn’t been long enough, I know it’s not appropriate but–”

                “I love you too,” she cuts him off, a sudden smile flashing across her face and it’s like the sun coming out from behind storm clouds, blinding in its beautiful intensity. “I love you.”

                “Well, I’m glad we’re finally on the same page,” he can’t help but say with a small dry chuckle, and she grabs him by the lapels so she can pull herself up on tiptoes to kiss him. He deepens the kiss, wrapping a wide hand around the back of her neck fondly, fingers fisting in her hair to hold her close to him. She lets out a little sigh and in an instant he wants her, he needs her. She seems to feel the same way, is peeling his shirt off, is tossing his hat out of the way, is making fast work of his belt buckle and his zipper and he’s doing the same to her t-shirt and her panties and he’s dipping gentle fingers inside her, stroking her until she’s gasping into his mouth and he pushes her back onto the bed, taking a nipple into his mouth and laving his tongue across it as he massages the other and her back arches in ecstasy.

                Earl pants, feeling more turned on than he’s ever felt in his life. Forget being a horny teenager – being a grown-ass man who knows what the fuck he’s doing with his mouth and his fingers and his dick, who knows how to make himself last, who knows how to draw these noises out of this beautiful younger woman is far superior in every regard. He yanks her to the edge of her mattress, ignoring complaints from his knees as he dips down and puts his mouth on her wetness and she moans, raking a hand through his hair. She must have heard his knees pop, because she shimmies back up the mattress, drawing him back into the bed with her. She tugs and pulls on him, arranging them so she can pleasure him with her mouth as he does the same to her. He dips his tongue inside her, tasting her gently, and stroking with adept fingers and then he sees stars when she takes him into her mouth, all warmth and suction and skill and he groans thickly, forcing himself not to thrust into her mouth, forcing himself to focus on what he’s doing, but it’s nearly impossible in the face of what she’s doing to him. With a shudder, he pulls away from her, puts her on her back on the bed, frames her face with his hands.

                “I love you,” he says earnestly. Clem smiles up to him and murmurs,

                “I love you too,” as he presses urgently into her. As he thrusts, she wraps her legs around him, drawing him closer, pressing him to her like they’re one person, one soul accidentally split into two bodies. All the stress, all the fear, all the loneliness and grief drops away and it’s just the two of them, making slow, sweet love to one another. Earl puts her on her side, wraps his body around hers, rocking into her from behind now as she presses back onto him, pushing her back into his chest, feeling his heartbeat, little soft sounds marking the moments of orgasm as she tightens around him, gasping, as they move together. He kisses the back of her neck, kisses those little birds on her shoulders and back, kisses her hair, kisses her temple, whispers little breathless names in her ear, “Darlin’, sweetheart, baby, gorgeous,” like a litany of prayer to his new goddess. Earl worships her with his body, offering himself at the altar of her affection as she whispers in turn, “I love you, I love you, I love you, my sheriff, my Earl, I love you,” rolling into a new position and nipping his neck gently with every declaration of love. Clem comes with him this time, clamping down on him as he cries out at the sudden electric tingle from his toes up his spine and to his core, shuddering through him with a force he’d never felt before and he empties himself in her, utterly spent.

                When Earl wakes in the morning, groggy and disoriented, it’s to the smell of gardenia and vanilla, and an empty bed.


	4. Its Rider's Name Was "Death"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Clementine's recovery, and what it leads to. (One last chapter of calm before the storm, and before the events of Far Cry 5).

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **TRIGGER WARNING** Brief mention of suicide and fatal car accident.

                Charity finds Clementine where she is tied under the bridge over Silver Lake, a thick fog of green smoke marking her location. It’s clear the cult wanted them to find her, that’s she’s only been returned because that’s the outcome they had planned. Charity grapples up underneath the metal bridge, calling to Pratt for extra rope and trying to shake away the red and green outlines that fog her vision as she breathes in the green smoke. He complies and she gets a harness around Clementine, gently but firmly securing her before undoing her bonds.

                “Clem, Clem, Oh god, Clem, hang on. Are you okay?” she asks, but Clementine is clearly under the influence of something. She shakes her head back and forth, her eyes unfocused, her brown irises hazy with a sickly green slick, her pupils tiny pinpricks of black.

                “The Father. The Father. He knows you’re coming! ‘And I looked, and behold, a white horse! And its rider’s name was Death,’” she clutches her chest, crying out suddenly before continuing her tirade, meeting Charity’s gaze eerily with her altered eyes, “‘And Hell followed with him.’” Clementine rips her shirt open to reveal a bloody mess, cut marks in the shape of the word “DEATH” carved across her chest just above her breasts.

                “Clementine. Clementine, listen to me, we don’t have much time before the ambulance gets here, before the others get here. Who was it? Who took you?” Clementine seems to regain clarity for a moment, takes another gasping breath.

                “It…was…” she murmurs something, head lolling.

                “Clementine, come on, who, who was it?” Rook urges, shaking her friend’s shoulder before looking wildly over her own at the sound of the approaching ambulance with Whitehorse’s patrol car following right behind it.

                “I will bring death upon this valley if I tell you,” Clementine says, voice wild again, fearful. “The Father told me I am Death.”

                “Who was it, Clem? Who took you?! Which one?!” Charity demands, popping her open palm against Clementine’s cheek to try to rouse her. Clementine’s eyes clear for just a moment, focusing. She meets Charity’s gaze again, clear, sober for just long enough to say in an eerie whisper,

                “It was Joseph.”

\--

                The heart monitor beeps steadily, a soft background noise that is oddly soothing when combined with the dull, muted sound of the urgent care clinic’s intercom, the dripping of an IV, the humming of all the instruments in the room, and Clementine’s breathing.

                Earl sits, leaned forward in his chair, his hat on his knee, his hands wrapped delicately around one of Clementine’s. His yellow-tinted sunglasses sit on the bed, forgotten. He is weary, feels like he hasn’t slept in ten years. He watches as Clementine’s chest rises and falls rhythmically. He stares at the gauze bandage there, rage flooding through him.

                “Wake up, Clem,” he murmurs, raising her hand to kiss it reverently. “Wake up.” She had some kind of drug in her system, he suspected the chemical the cult had been refining from that goddamn plant, the one that had been left on their doorsteps as a threat. A promise of violence. The doctor said Clem should be awake by tomorrow morning, a full day after they brought her here, but the brown-haired man has one of those bladed cross tattoos and the beginnings of a beard, so Earl doesn’t trust a word he says. Earl has stayed by Clem’s side the entire time she’s been here, from ambulance to bed, only leaving when he is thrust from the room while they examine and dress the wound across her chest. He’d seen the word, seen the jagged lines that spelled it, almost deep enough to cut muscle, and he had stumbled to the nearest bathroom, ejecting everything he’d eaten that day. In his time as a law enforcement officer, he had certainly seen worse, seen suicide cases with brains and blood splattered on walls, seen car accidents with streaks of human beings skidded down the road thirty feet before ending in a shuddering pile of sinew and pain. But there was something about seeing this injury, this threat on her, on that soft freckled flesh that he loved so much that made his usual fortitude against graphic injury dissolve. Thinking about it again, his stomach churns wildly. There’s a knock at the door and he looks up. It’s a face he doesn’t recognize, and when the man speaks with a soft Georgia accent, Earl has his answer why; this cult member followed the Seeds here, he’s not from Hope County.

                “The Father has a message for you, Sheriff,” the man drawls. Earl stares at him, silent, waiting, resisting the urge to throttle the man. “He knows you are coming. He wants me to tell you that this is your last chance. You cannot stop what is coming. If you come for him, you will surely die. If you try to take him, it will bring Death to your people. You and yours are but a serpent in the garden, we will stomp you beneath our heel without hesitation if you slither any closer.”

                “You can tell Joseph Seed that nothing he says will stop me. I will find a way to bring him and all his siblings to justice. I promise you that, you son-of-a-bitch,” Earl says seriously, voice a low purring growl of soft fury.

                “The Father also knew you would say this,” the man responds smugly. “He said to tell you that if you try to take him, he will take her from you, and this time he will not give her back.” Earl’s face goes cold and then hot in waves as he stares into the hard green eyes of the man. “You will not resist the Father’s will if you know what’s good for you, Sheriff. For any of you.”

\--

                Charity shimmies to the top of the cell tower, taking deep breaths, forcing herself not to look down at the fall that would kill her if she lost her grip, if her carabiner failed. She’s carrying a pouch full of electronic components and a promise from her friend Gus that this will get the cell tower at the far southern edge of the county up and running again. All the other towers had been dismantled completely, or were guarded by a horde of Peggies. This was her last option. It had taken her a little over six hours to get here, huffing and puffing with effort as she climbed up a vertical rock face to get to the base of the tower, heart thundering in her throat. At last, at long last they had a witness statement, a direct accusation that would result in an arrest warrant. She knows if she can just get the tower up again, get a phone call out to Burke, they can end all of this. Her hand slips on a bar and she stops for a moment to calm down and to check she hasn’t shit herself, her lips trembling as she makes the mistake of looking down. She should have brought a parachute, she thinks to herself wildly. She looks up. Just a little farther. Clenching her jaw and mustering her resolution, she climbs. She had been a junior deputy for little more than four months, had started just shortly before Clem and Whitehorse had met, and she hopes this will put her on the map, hopes that her nickname “Rookie” will just be shorted to her last name permanently after this. Junior Deputy Charity Hellen Rook takes one last, agonizing step up and sees the control panel, opening it with a smile.

\--

                The next knock at the door awakens Earl from where he is slumped partially on Clementine’s bed. The side of his face is stamped with wrinkles from the sheets, but he is alert in half a moment, prepared for the new threat with a hand going to his service weapon.

                “I just got off the phone with Burke, Sheriff,” Rook says, her eyes burning brightly with righteous wrath. He looks at her, disbelieving. “I got a cell tower back up. I called him. Told him what happened. We’ve got that son-of-a-bitch. We’ve got him. Burke’s flying here in three days. He’ll have a warrant in hand, ‘kidnapping with the intent to harm.’ We got him.”

                “What?” Earl whispers quietly, putting gargantuan effort into keeping a tight rein on his temper.

                “Burke’s coming to Hope county to arrest Joseph Seed, Sheriff.”

                “Him and what army, Rook?” Earl asks, his voice only quiet because Clementine is sleeping. She had awakened briefly this morning, but was still sleeping off whatever the cult had drugged her with. Charity frowns at the sheriff’s question.

                “This is a good thing, Sheriff.”

                “No, it’s not!” he says, raising his voice, furious. “Do you have any idea what you’ve done? You’ve killed us, Rook. You’ve doomed us all.”

                “What?” she says, and her voice is quiet, scared now, uncertain, like a child and while it would normally have gentled him, now it just riled his temper up even hotter.

                “Trying to take Joseph Seed, like I’ve said at least a dozen times before, will set off a holy war with this cult, Rook. You’re taking a fight to a group that has been desperately looking for one, and we’re outmanned and outgunned on all fronts. No one but us has taken this fucking cult seriously and it took us too goddamn long ourselves. Now we have no way out of this county without dooming everyone left here. Every single deputy in this county except you, Pratt and Hudson have defected. Half of dispatch belongs to the cult, the other half left the county long ago or has disappeared. I’ve got one person there I can still trust: Nancy. Jerome says she’s still going to his church on Sundays. That’s just five people we know for sure are on the right side if you include me. Sometimes,” he sighs, wiping his face, “Sometimes it’s best to leave well enough alone, Rook,” he tells her, voice soft and defeated.

                The look on Rook’s face when he looks at her again nearly breaks him, the disappointment there is like a physical force.

                “But…we’re the good guys, Sheriff,” she says, sounding more like a frightened child than an officer of the law. He looks down at Clem, squeezes her hand gently.

                “They’re going to kill her if we serve that warrant, Rook.” Rook goes stiff and Earl hears her take a little stuttered breath. She’s scared now. So is he.

                “We can keep her safe, we can put her in a safehouse, we…”

                “They took her while I was lying next to her, Rook, what makes you think we can keep anyone safe from them anymore?!” He can feel his blood pressure rising, can feel his heart beating hard. He stares at her, eyes hard, looking at her in a way he’s never done before, no patience or compassion in his gaze. “ _You_ insisted on getting this warrant without a better plan in place, _you_ put us in more danger than we were already in. You’re going to be the one putting the cuffs on Joseph Seed. Your actions have consequences, and you’re going to want to hide your face in shame when you’ve see them.” Rook opens her mouth to argue, looking hurt, looking angry, but instead of saying anything, she just walks away.

\--

                Earl wipes the ragged edge of the wound gently with the gauze, following the nurse’s instructions to the letter. He dabs the antibiotic cream across it gently, making himself ignore the warm tears that drip onto his arms while he’s working. He meets gentle brown eyes, sees his reflection swimming there in a pool of tears. He knows why she’s crying, replays that terrified, “Please don’t go. Don’t go with them tomorrow” in his head, chest twisting painfully.

                “Hey,” he says, “it’s gonna be okay. Everything’s alright.” It’s a damned lie. Just yesterday, the valley had shook at several points with heavy explosions. The cult had finally done it. They’d blocked the way out with any land vehicle, and they’d taken the Rye’s airfield. There was no longer any feasible escape from the nightmare this county had become. Clementine pulls her robe tight around her chest, laying back down on the bed, numb, silent. Earl takes his work clothes off, showers, steps out and crawls into the bed next to her, pulling her close to him, but making no other move, just holding her. She starts to sob, tears racking her frame and he just holds her, savors the time that he has with her, knows that it is probably coming to an end soon.

                “Please don’t go tomorrow,” she begs again. “Please don’t leave me. Nothing good will come of it.” He shushes her gently, stroking that gorgeous red hair.

                Earl knows he needs to apologize to Rook, knows the kid was just trying to do the right thing, was trying to impress him, show him she could handle a tough situation, and he knew it wasn’t her fault this situation was so out of control. It was his. He had seen it starting, years ago, like a festering wound, he’d ignored it until it was gangrenous and deadly. He could have stopped this, and hadn’t. Now it was too late.

                Burke will be here tomorrow. The end of the world starts tomorrow, he can feel it in his bones.

                For right now, Earl embraces the time he has left, embraces what he loves the most. He waits for Clementine to calm and then he kisses her, staring into her eyes, his own holding a question. She gingerly removes her robe, careful of the bandages. He cups her jaw in his hand, kisses her lightly.

                “You are the most beautiful, kind, funny, wonderful woman I’ve ever known, Clementine Williams. I’m glad I met you,” he tells her solemnly.

                “Don’t talk to me like you’re going out there to die tomorrow.” He huffs a sad laugh.

                “I’ll try not to, just for you,” he promises solemnly, though there’s humor in his tone.

                “Did you take your heart medication?” Earl rolls his eyes. Way to kill the mood.

                “Did you take your antibiotics?” She smirks.

                “Yes, two hours ago when you handed it to me.”

                “How are we already like an old married couple?” he teases her, eyes twinkling with mischief.

                “Because when you’ve been waiting this long for something this good, you want to jump right into the good stuff. You want to jump right in to that feeling of caring so much for someone you can’t see yourself without them. So much so that you’re willing to nag them about their medication. Go. I’ll be right here waiting for you.”

                When Earl returns from the kitchen with a glass of water, he finds Clementine stretched across the bed tastefully, the sheet artfully covering the most holy parts of her. He smiles at her and joins her on the bed, unwrapping her from the sheets like a present, nuzzling her. They move together as the sun goes down, all sighs and gasps, and whispered promises and declarations, hands touching, teasing, holding. Their mouths seek one another’s in desperation, kissing wildly like it’s the last time they’ll get to, because it might be. They tangle with one another, crying out in ecstasy, cascading pleasure falling simultaneously as they lose themselves in each other, blocking the world out for one more night.


	5. Coward of the County

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Earl makes a decision. Buckle up, folks, next chapter shit hits the fan.

                Earl had bid Clementine farewell that morning, kissed her like his life depended on it, and then left her in a safehouse with his friend Eli Palmer. The man had been invaluable in keeping people alive and safe from the cult recently, working on establishing a private militia to prevent more homes and families from being taken. He had once worked for the Seeds, building bunkers for them under contract as a civil engineer. Like Earl, he hadn’t seen the harm in the cult until it was too late. If anyone could keep Clementine safe, it was Eli.

                Earl feels dread collecting in him like moths to an open flame, turns the car radio on to distract himself.

                “Coward of the County” is playing, and for the first time the song really gets under Earl’s skin, pissing him off. He slams his hand into the radio, swearing, calms, and switches it off, his knuckles going white on the wheel. He drives in silent contemplation to the county deputies’ department, parking in his usual space and stepping into the station.

                “Rook,” he says, by way of greeting as he walks into the station. She’s sitting at her desk, looking despondent, ignoring his greeting. He puts a gentle hand on her shoulder. “Hey. I’m sorry, Rook. This shit isn’t on you, it’s on me. You were trying to do the right thing, and I respect that. Your dad would have been proud of you.” She looks up at him, her features rearranging into pride and contentment and excitement.

                “Alright, listen up everyone,” Burke says, banging the doors to the station open to announce his arrival. “We’re going in tonight after this fucking rain storm passes. I don’t want to deal with every Tom, Dick and Harry watching us when we arrest this crazy motherfucker, so drink some coffee, take a nap, whatever. We’re headed out at two in the morning, so you do whatever you need to do to be alert at that time.” Rook makes eye contact with Earl, so he forces himself not to broadcast on his face how much he does not like this idiot marshal.

                “Well, we know we’re going to have to deal with at least one Dick,” Hudson mutters under her breath to Rook. Earl shoots her a look of disapproval.

                “Marshal Burke,” he says, holding a hand out. Burke takes it briefly, his handshake weak and disingenuous.

                “Whitehorse. You got that chopper ready?”

                “Yes, sir. We’ve got enough fuel to get in and then get the fuck out. I still don’t think this is a good idea, Marshal. We need more people, more support.”

                “It’s a fuckin’ cult, Earl,” Burke says, lip curled in disgust. “This isn’t the first one I’ve dealt with, it won’t be the last. It’s not like they’re the goddamn Branch Davidians,” he snarks. Earl appraises him for a moment.

                “You’re right, Burke. They’re not like the Branch Davidians, they’re worse.” Burke scoffs and looks around.

                “You have someplace I can work around here, Sheriff?” Burke asks, gruff. Rude.

                “There’s a desk right over there, you’re welcome to it,” Earl points, reining in his temper once again.

                That goddamn song is tinkling through his mind and he feels anger and fear like a lump of molten metal dropped in his belly.

                “ _Everyone considered him the coward of the county, He'd never stood one single time to prove the county wrong…_ ” With a silent snarl, Earl pours himself another cup of coffee, hands shaking, swearing when the dark liquid jitters over his hand, burning.

                “You alright, Sheriff?” Rook asks quietly, eyes wide with anticipation and concern.

                “I’m fine, Rook. Get back to work,” Earl advises, wiping his hand.

                Like a mosquito in a dark room, the song keeps buzzing through his mind and his eyes go distant.

                “ _Promise me, son, not to do the things I've done, Walk away from trouble if you can, Now, it won't mean you're weak if you turn the other cheek, I hope you're old enough to understand, Son, you don't have to fight to be a man…”_ Rook’s voice is in his mind now, quoting Shakespeare, her chin tilted up at him, challenging him meeting his eye pridefully, wrath in her countenance.

_“‘Cowards die many times before their deaths; the valiant taste death but once.’”_

Sheriff Earl Whitehorse was many things, but he was not a coward.


	6. The Warrant

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Begins the events of Far Cry 5. Most of it should be familiar, but it's from Earl's POV instead of Rook's.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I live for comments and reviews. If anyone's reading this, I will love you forever if you'll comment and let me know what you think and if you have any suggestions.

                “Hey, Rookie,” Earl says, a little annoyed that she’s trying to watch videos on her phone as they fly over Holland valley toward the Henbane River. “Rookie!” he hollers to get her attention, tapping her on the knee with the back of his hand. She snaps her gaze up to him, her face a little pale at whatever she just watched. “You’re wasting your time, there’s no signal out here.” He looks at Burke out of the corner of his eye, trying to control his anxiety.

                “Crossing over the Henbane now,” Pratt says from the front seat. The massive statue of Joseph is on their left, a gray monstrosity of steel and cement.

                “Oh fuck,” Hudson says dryly. “There he is.”

                “Crazy motherfucker,” Pratt agrees, not sounding half as nervous as Earl feels right now.

                “Jesus,” Earl mutters under his breath, but his mic still picks it up, broadcasts it to everyone.

                “We’re officially in Peggie country,” Hudson tells Burke with a look back to Earl. He tries to convey confidence, calm, knows he’s probably failing at it.

                “How much longer?” Burke asks, eternally impatient. He’s got the warrant folded in his hand like it’s his ninety-five theses and he’s ready to nail it to the door.

                “Just long enough for you to change your mind so we can turn this bird around,” Earl suggests, one last try to avoid going to a war he knows they aren’t ready to start, one he knows they probably won’t win. Burke looks over at him, his dark face serious, pissed. He holds up the sheet of paper.

                “You want me to ignore a federal warrant, Sheriff?” he tests, obviously trying to push Earl’s buttons. They hadn’t seen eye to eye even once all day and Earl was sick of the man. He takes a breath, clenches his teeth.

                “No sir. I want you to understand the reality of this situation,” he tells him, turning toward the marshal as much as his seat belt will allow, meeting Burke’s eyes intently. “Joseph Seed, he’s not a man to be fucked with.” Earl’s eyes go distant and he stares out at that massive statue before continuing. “We’ve had run-ins with him before and they haven’t always gone our way,” he explains, meeting Hudson’s eye as she glances at him from the cockpit, remembering one of the several times they had tried to investigate missing people and property, remembers being threatened, extorted, cajoled. “Just…sometimes…sometimes it’s best to leave well enough alone.” Earl resolutely does not look at Rook when he says this. Burke sniffs haughtily and nods a little.

                “Yeah, well, we have laws for a reason, Sheriff.”

                “Hmmm,” Earl growls, wanting to interrupt but stopping himself.

                “And Joseph Seed is going to learn that.” Burke looks away from Earl, tucks the warrant in his back pocket and stares out the window. Earl takes another deep breath, feeling a little light-headed.

                “Pratt, open a call with dispatch,” Earl says, voice low and agitated.

                “Ten-four,” Pratt says, flipping a switch.

                “Whitehorse to dispatch, over.” He waits. Static creaks through his headset and he winces a little.

                “Go ahead, Earl,” says a familiar female voice, one he hopes is still on his side.

                “We’re approaching the compound, Nancy, over.”

                “Roger, Sheriff. You still planning to go through with this? Over.”

                “We are – unfortunately – still trying to talk some sense into our friend the marshal,” he says with a small amount of bitter humor in his tone. “Over.” Burke smirks and Earl resists the urge to slap the expression off his face.

                “Alright,” says Nancy over the radio. “He’s lucky I’m not there. If you get into any trouble, you just let me know, over.”

                “Ten-four, over and out.”

                “Maybe we shoulda brought Nancy along with us instead of the Probie,” Pratt teases, jutting a thumb at Rook. “Those Peggies wouldn’t fuck with her.”

                “Pratt,” Hudson cuts him off before Earl can. He looks at Rook encouragingly, a tight smile on his face for a moment.

                “Why do you keep calling them Peggies?” Burke asks scathingly, frowning.

                “Project at Eden’s Gate: P.E.G. – Peggies,” Earl answers in an equally condescending tone. “It’s what the locals call ‘em. You know, they started off harmless enough a few years back, but now they are armed to the teeth, they’re looking for a fight,” Earl says to Burke, meeting his eyes again and he can see a little doubt there now. The doubt is gone in a moment, replaced with disdain.

                “Are you scared, Sheriff?” Earl just stares at him. Yes. Yes, he is.

                “We’re here,” Pratt announces. “Compound’s just below.”

                “Ooohph,” Earl lets out, a heavy breath of dread as he sees all the cultists still wandering around the compound at this hour. It’s nearly three in the morning, and they’re still active, still burning a bonfire, still moving green barrels into a warehouse. It was going to be like walking up to a hornet’s nest and lighting it on fire while standing next to it buck naked.

                “Oh my Jesus,” Pratt mutters, now nervous.

                “This is a bad idea,” Hudson opines, matter-of-fact.

                “Last chance, Marshal,” Earl says, praying the man will change his mind, that they can get the fuck out of here and he can go home and scoop Clementine up, that he can sneak her out and leave this godforsaken county behind whether it makes him a coward or not. Burke sets his jaw, frowning and letting out a long, obstinate sigh.

                “We’re going in,” he insists, meeting Rook’s eyes hard, ignoring Earl, who shakes his head, swallowing. He looks out across the valley, hopes Clementine is safe, and prays.

                “Set her down,” Earl orders. He turns to Pratt and Hudson, who are staring at him, fearful. “Pratt.” The young deputy nods and obeys.

                “Roger that,” Pratt says, his voice shaking a little.

                “Dispatch, you still there?” Earl asks, staring at the empty seat in front of him, eyes distant again, avoiding Rook’s gaze.

                “Yes, go ahead, Sheriff,” Nancy’s voice answers.

                “You don’t hear from us in fifteen minutes, send in everyone. Call the goddamn National Guard if you have to, over.” Earl unclips his seat belt, heart pounding.

                “Yes sir, Sheriff. I’ll be praying for you,” she assures him, but it sounds like a threat more than an encouragement. Earl shakes his head at himself. He’s getting paranoid, he thinks. He pulls the head set off without saying another word to her.

                “Now listen up,” Earl orders, damned if he’s going to let Burke take the lead. “Three rules: stick close, keep you weapon in your holsters and,” he meets Burke’s eyes, “let _me_ do the talking. Got it?”

                “Got it,” Burke answers dryly.

                “Rookie?” Earl says, turning to her. Her face is still pale. She blows a strand of golden-brown hair out of her face, tucking it behind her ear nervously. She nods, face grim. “Alright, everyone. Stay sharp. Let’s go.” Everyone except Pratt steps out of the chopper, Earl pressing a hand flat on the top of his hat to keep the rotor wind from blowing it off his head. He leads the way, looking back at Rook for a brief moment to make sure she hasn’t passed out. She still looked a little pale. “He’ll be in the church,” Earl tells Burke. “Stick close. Eyes open,” he murmurs, “These folks can spook easily.” There are mutters and complaints from the cultists as they move in, aggressive. Earl keeps his hand on his service weapon, but keeps it holstered. For now. They walk resolutely toward the church, a little flock of sheep amidst a pack of wolves. “Be calm, stay calm, everyone. Just go about your business.” Never mind that some of their business was using a flamethrower to burn books in a pile thirty feet from him. Earl swallows, forcing himself to stay follow his own order to be calm. “This doesn’t concern you,” he says to a couple of cultists stepping toward them, holding rifles in their hands. He walks past, forcing himself not to look back, though he feels like there’s a target painted between his shoulder blades.

                “Sheriff, I don’t like this,” Hudson mutters.

                “Everything’s fine, Hudson. Everything’s just fine…” he trails off, sick of the lie.

                “Jesus Christ, you’re wearing badges aren’t you?” Burke mocks, quickening his pace to stay just ahead of Earl, obviously trying to make it clear that he feels he’s in charge here. The only one in charge here is Joseph Seed, Earl thinks, a shiver running up his spine.

                “Yeah, but they don’t respect badges much out here,” Hudson says in response, her tone martyred. She’s clearly just as sick of Burke as Earl is.

                “They’ll respect a nine millimeter,” Burke snaps, meeting the eyes of a cult member that has hopped off a nearby bench holding a sawed-off shotgun.

                “Not every problem can be solved with a bullet, Marshal,” Earl reminds him patiently. They’re nearly to the doors of the church and Earl suddenly feels like he’s wading through syrup, his steps slowing, his heart beating so loudly he can hear it, can feel his pulse in his temples throbbing at his jugular like a battle drum. “Calm down,” he mutters to Hudson, seeing her shaking a little, her rifle clattering softly in her hands. He can hear voices singing “Amazing Grace” inside, remembers with sudden clarity singing this song as a child when he was forced to attend church, remembers telling the pastor his black eye was from getting hit with a baseball, remembering the fist that had actually caused it slamming into him for spilling a glass of milk.

                _Focus, Earl_ , he thinks, _no time for a trip down fucked-up childhood memory lane._

                Bringing himself to the present, his underarms drenched in sweat despite the cold night air, Earl shudders and slams his palm flat onto the door with a thud, preventing Burke from opening it. “Woah, Marshal,” he insists. The younger man, furious, stares at him, about to draw his sidearm and force his way into the doors. The man has a death wish. “Now, we do this, we do it my way. Quietly. _Calmly._ You got it?”

                “Fine,” Burke agrees, tone terse, and he leaves his hand on his weapon, his stare challenging Earl to tell him to do otherwise. Earl turns away from him with a longsuffering sigh.

                “Hudson, on the door. Watch our backs. Don’t let any of these people get in,” he orders, looking at the crowd of cultists that has followed them all the way up to the church. His fists are clenched, his short nails biting into his palms. “Rookie.” He looks at her, sees how frightened she is. She’s shaking. He gives her a reassuring look, nods a little. “On me. And you,” he meets Burke’s eye, his lip curling, “just…try not to do anything stupid.”

                “Relax, Sheriff,” Burke says sarcastically, putting a hand on Earl’s shoulder. “You’re about to get your name in the paper.” The condescension oozing from his voice is infuriating. Before Earl can tell him in no uncertain terms to get his hand off him, Burke removes it and steps back, an arrogant sneer on his face. Earl glares at him for a moment, and then reaches to open the doors.

                “Something is coming. You can feel it, can’t you? That we are creeping toward the edge…and there will be a reckoning,” a soft, insidious voice tells the congregation. Earl turns back to check on Rook, his boots causing the wood floors to squeak. A few of the churchgoers look back at them, their faces hostile. “That is why we started the Project. Because we know what happens next. They will come. They will try to take from us…” Burke turns to Earl and he holds out a hand to stop him from interrupting. Let Joseph have his say. They don’t need to increase the chaos by interrupting his sermon, though why the man is preaching at three in the morning is beyond Earl. Did someone tip the cult that they were coming? “Take our guns. Take our freedom…take our faith.” The whole of the church is looking at them now as they slowly walk up the center aisle toward Joseph Seed, Burke again pushing, stepping faster and faster toward the front, excited for confrontation. “But we will not let them!” Joseph declares and Earl meets his eyes, the shirtless man covered in tattoos and scars, the front of his head starting to bald like Earl’s had when he was in his forties. Joseph’s yellow-tinted glasses reflect the light of the cross behind him, crystalizing those haunting blue eyes.

                “Sheriff, c’mon,” Burke urges quietly. Earl holds up his hand, shakes his head a little.

                “Just hold on, Marshal,” he murmurs, feeling sweat trickle down his back.

                “We will not let their greed,” Joseph meets Burke’s eyes, “or their immorality,” meets Earl’s, “or their depravity,” meets Rook’s, “hurt us anymore!”

                “Sheriff,” Burke grinds out. Pleading, Earl holds up both hands to stop Burke.

                “ _Do not_ pull that trigger. Remain calm.”

                “There will be no more suffering!” Joseph declares.

                “No. Fuck this,” Burke snaps, holding up the warrant before Earl can stop him. “Joseph Seed! I have a warrant issued for your arrest on the suspicion of kidnapping with the intent to harm! Now I want you to step forward and keep your hands where I can see ‘em.” Cultists are standing, starting to put themselves between the law enforcement officers and Joseph, all hands on weapons.

                Ever the showman, Joseph keeps his eyes locked with Burke’s, holds his arms out as though he’s on a cross before putting them in front of him at shoulder width, palms out like a saint delivering a blessing to his people. Then, he tilts the ends of his fingers toward Earl and Burke, looking to one and then the other.

                “Here they are,” he says, voice low and calm. “The Locusts in our garden…you see they’ve come for me. They’ve come to take me away from you.” Angry muttering turns to angry cries from the churchgoers behind them and Earl looks over his shoulder, counting, seeing just how outnumbered they are. “They’ve come to destroy all that we’ve built!” Joseph declares, raising his voice and meeting Rook’s eyes evenly. Burke goes for his gun and Earl jumps, holding out a hand again.

                “Now, hold on, do not touch that service weapon! Hold on and stand down!” Earl hollers over the now screaming crowd of angry cultists. “Stand down! Everyone calm down!” he orders, holding both hands out to the cultists. This situation has gone from bad to worse. Joseph steps down from his stage, pushing aside his followers and the church abruptly goes so quiet you could hear a pin drop. His siblings step onto the stage behind him like angels gathered around God’s throne.

                “We knew this moment would come,” Joseph says calmly, putting comforting hands on two of his protecting cultists. “We have prepared for it. Go. Go,” he urges them and they step between Earl and Burke, flowing calmly around where Rook is standing. “God will not let them take me.” Joseph raises his hands to the heavens, looking upwards. “I saw when the Lamb opened the First Seal, and I heard, as if it were the noise of thunder, one of the four beasts say ‘come and see!’”

                “Step forward,” Burke commands, impatient. He still thinks they have control of this situation and the idea makes Earl want to laugh.

                “And. I. _Saw_ ,” Joseph interrupts, enunciating every word clearly, his voice like a hammer on a gavel. He steps toward Burke aggressively, jabbing a pointed finger at his face, “and behold,” he purrs, turning his head and dropping his hand, making eye contact with Earl, “it was a white horse…” Earl’s blood runs cold. He’d never been so afraid in all his life as he was now, looking into those cold blue eyes. Joseph turns away, turns to Rook now, “and Hell followed with him.” Joseph holds both his hands out, as though pleading with Rook to take them, to hold his hands and follow him to redemption, to salvation.

                “Rookie,” Burke snaps, interrupting the moment of intensity between junior deputy and cult leader, “cuff this son-of-a-bitch.”

                “God will not let you take me,” Joseph says, his tone sure, certain as the sun rises in the east.

                “Rook, put the cuffs on him,” Burke demands, furious. Earl is watching her, sees her jaw clench. She looks to him for guidance, but he has none for her. She breaks their gaze as though ashamed, and then she steps forward, cuffing Joseph’s hands together in front of him.

                “Sometimes the best thing to do…is to walk away,” Joseph whispers, meeting Earl’s eyes again as Rook steps around behind him, one hand on his shoulder to keep him from falling as they escort him.

                “Let’s go,” Earl whispers, a feeling of doom overwhelming him. They push the church doors back open just as a truck full of more cultists pulls up, nearly hitting Hudson, but she holds her ground.

                “We gotta get the fuck out of here,” she murmurs to him as he steps out of the now mostly empty church.

                “Marshal, take point,” Earl says, brooking no argument. “We’re going right. Stay on the path, Rookie,” he orders her. “Amazing Grace” is playing again, this time from loudspeakers on the back of the pickup truck that had nearly hit Hudson. It’s an eerie, distorted version of the song and it makes goosebumps crawl up and down Earl’s spine. He, Hudson and Burke push cultists out of the way, clearing a path for Rook with Joseph in tow.

                “Rookie, keep up,” Hudson instructs, but Earl can tell it’s Joseph who’s dragging his feet, intentionally making them go slower than necessary.

                “I am a Federal Marshal, I am ordering you to stand down,” Burke screams at a cult member who’s aiming at him with a rifle. One of them throws a rock that hits Burke hard on the cheek and he cries out, whirling, looking for the culprit, obviously infuriated. Fuck.

                “Weapons out! Weapons out!” Earl calls as one of them punches him hard in the shoulder, earning them an elbow to the face. He aims his pistol and the man backs up, holding his nose. Burke fires warning shots in the air. “Get him to the chopper, now!” Earl commands, heart racing.

                “Get back, get back, get the fuck back!” Burke is screaming, shoving cultists away. One of them rams their elbow into Earl’s side and he staggers, grunting, keeping his feet out of sheer desperation as they rush to the chopper. He aims at another cultist over his shoulder as he opens the chopper’s front door, waiting for Hudson to help pull Rook and Joseph into the passenger area where he had previously been seated. Pratt is flipping switches, preparing for take off.

                “Rookie, get in,” Earl urges, shoving her with a hard hand to the back before pulling himself into his seat. Once they are all in, Pratt tries to lift the chopper, but there are cultists crawling all over it, like ants on a sugar cube. “We’re too heavy, goddamn it. Get them off the windshield, Pratt, shake ‘em off. Nancy, Nancy, come in, Nancy! Do you copy? Nancy?” Burke fires his gun and Earl’s stomach sinks. “Goddamn it, Burke, what the hell’s wrong with you? Nancy?!”

                “Get off, get off!” Hudson screams, shoving scrabbling, screaming bodies away as they rise in the air. Grasping, desperate hands are clawing and raking at them, trying to recover their leader. They’re all screaming, all panicked, deputies and cultists alike. The only one who’s calm is Joseph, who sits softly singing to himself, hands clasped in his lap.

                “Go, go, go,” Earl urges Pratt. A cultist scrambles up onto the nose of the chopper once they’re already seventy feet in the air and headed toward Dutch’s Island. The mad figure leaps into the rotors with a sudden jump. Earl throws a hand up instinctively to protect his face as blood splatters across the windshield of the chopper. There’s a shuddering groan that ripples through the chasse of the machine and he feels every muscle in his body clench in terror. Absently, he realizes Joseph is singing “Amazing Grace,” sitting placidly amidst the chaos. The helicopter begins to spin, yawing wildly, its motor whining as every alarm chime it has starts beeping and screaming. Earl feels himself start to black out at the sudden g-forces, feels nausea rising as though he’s on the back of a bucking bull again. He can hear himself yelling, can hear them all crying out in terror as the blades hit tree branches, the only soft sound the timbre of Joseph’s singing.

                “Brace for impact!” Pratt warns and the helicopter slams hard into something, the sudden stop nearly knocking Earl out. His body jolts, his waist bruising as it is slung against the seatbelt, every joint screaming as the chopper rolls.

                “Was blind,” Joseph warbles as the body of the helicopter reels down a small hill, his voice eerily off-key, “But now…I see…” Earl loses consciousness for a moment, blood rushing to his head and when next he opens his eyes, he realizes he’s hanging upside down from his seat belt, abdomen and belly aching. He groans, every part of him hurting.

                “Come in, this is Nancy, is everything okay? Over.” Earl tries to shake himself, tries to reach for his headset, which is dangling from the console toward the backseat, but his mind is sluggish, reeling. “Please? Are you there? Are you there? Are you there, Sheriff? Deputy Hudson, if you’re there, please pick up.”

                “Amazing grace, how sweet the sound…” Rook tries to swat the headset toward Earl, or to take it herself, but can’t quite reach.

                “Deputy Pratt? Are you there? Are you there?” Rook finally grabs it, but Joseph snatches her hand in a hard grip and she cries out in pain and fear, releasing the headset to swing freely again.

                “That saved…a wretch…like me…” Joseph sings to Rook like it’s a lullaby.

                “Earl?! Come in, over. Please, are you there? Is somebody there? Please.” Earl tries to speak, to yell, to do anything, but he feels consciousness start to fade again, feels like he’s halfway in, halfway out of his own body.

                “I told you that God wouldn’t let you take me,” Joseph says softly, but Earl can hear him.

                “Please. I need to know what’s going on,” Nancy begs over the radio.

                “Dispatch,” Joseph says in a creepily accurate mimicry of Earl’s own voice.

                “Ooh, my god,” Nancy whispers over the radio.

                “Everything is just fine here,” Joseph says, the intonation and calm purr of voice almost dead accurate for Earl’s own voice. Earl chokes on a mouthful of blood, tries to scream but the world is spinning madly. “No need to call anyone,” Joseph finishes in his own voice.

                “Yes, Father. Praise be to you,” Nancy answers. Joseph steps out of the crashed, belly-up helicopter, his own people helping him out as Earl struggles to breathe, feels himself cough up more blood, shudders as smoke and sparks flare up around him.

                “Everything is unfolding according to God’s plan. I am still here with you. The First Seal has been broken,” Joseph says to the gathering cultists. “The Collapse has begun. And we will take what we need. We will kill all those who stand in our way. And these, these harbingers of doom will see the truth.” Earl finally manages to cough out the wad of blood from his lung, a stringy clot and he gasps, sucking in air desperately.

                “We gotta get outta here,” the sheriff mutters urgently, shaking his head, trying to rid his vision of the haze. He scrabbles at his seat belt. “We gotta get outta here…we gotta get outta here…”

                “BEGIN THE REAPING!” Joseph screams.

                “We gotta get outta here!” Earl cries, shaking Pratt hard where he hangs half-conscious from his seatbelt. A cultist grabs Pratt, yanking him out of the chopper roughly. “Pratt! Pratt!” Rough hands grab at him, grabbing his arms, his legs and he jerks, struggles like a fly caught in a spider’s web. Someone cuts his seatbelt and he collapses to the roof of the chopper with a grunt of pain. “Get away from me!” he hollers, delivering a swift kick to the nearest crotch he sees, and then to a belly, and then to a face. Someone grabs him by the hair, yanking his head roughly back and he moans as one of them kicks him hard in the belly, and then another gets revenge for the earlier strike, hitting him so hard in the crotch he sees stars and feels like throwing up. He writhes on the ground, clutching at himself, catching his breath as tears of pain flood his vision.

                “Take him to Faith,” he hears a hard voice say and he thrashes, crotch aching, chest tightening. Earl feels himself gasping like a fish. Someone kicks him in the side and he grunts again, feels like he’s going to die right here as he tries to catch his breath.

                Someone restrains him with his own cuffs, ratcheting them too tight, and he can feel his hands start to lose circulation even before they load him in a van. Tracey Lader meets his eyes, looks away quickly, shoves a cloth bag over his head. It smells like gardenia and vanilla. Breathing deeply, Earl feels the world spinning again, like he’s back in the chopper, and then the world goes black.


	7. Lust and Pride

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Earl is taken prisoner by Faith. Trauma and assault ensues.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **TRIGGER WARNING**  
> Non-consensual touch of a male by a female. Manual sexual assault of a male by a female occurs in this chapter.  
> **TRIGGER WARNING**  
> This chapter depicts moments of dissociation and psychosis under the influence of drugs.  
> If you need to, you can skip this chapter and still be able to follow the story.
> 
> I spent a long time considering how I wanted to handle this situation and what I thought might have happened to Earl to make him consider suicide when he is captured by Faith again. In the game, his description of his capture by Faith to Rook was related in a way that seemed rehearsed, as though he was leaving parts out. Both Jacob and John do horrifying things to their prisoners. Why wouldn't Faith? Scopolamine, the drug known in-game as "Bliss" has been commonly used in many countries as a date rape drug, or a way to force a victim of abuse to give into suggestion, or to agree to further abuse. Still don't think Faith Seed is the most fucked up Seed aside from Joseph? Go read about the side-effects of scopolamine on victims given incorrect or too high dosages.  
> \------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

                When Earl comes to, he is lying face-down in the dirt, a spider scuttling lazily over his hand. He jerks his hand to dislodge the arachnid and coughs, pushing himself up and looking around the grassy field. There are other people with him, calmly, silently meandering around the expanse of grass and wildflowers under a clear blue sky. Mist, green-tinged, is rising from the grass like fog on a cool spring morning. Standing unsteadily, he tries to call out, but finds his voice has escaped him. He struggles toward the edge of the field, desperate to escape, desperate to find help, to find Clementine, to find Rook and Hudson and Pratt. He trips on a gopher mound and lands awkwardly, catching himself with his hands, palms scraping against rock and dirt. With a gasp of air, he gets up again, but the field seems to expand in all directions. Taking another deep breath, he finds he’s not worried about it, just keeps walking slowly in circles, his eyes and nose burning.

                Absently, Earl wipes under his nostrils, his hand coming back bloody, his mustache crusting with the blood seeping from his nose. What is going on? Shaking himself, he sits down, looking up at the ceiling, then back down at the concrete floor.

                With a start, Earl realizes he is bound to a chair, arms zip tied behind his back so tightly his shoulders ache. His legs are tied to the front legs of the chair, ankles stretched behind them uncomfortably, putting constant strain on his knee joints. He tests the bonds, tugging hard at them, heart pounding in his ears. He looks around. He’s in a dimly lit room that reeks of that sickly sweet gardenia stench.

                “Good,” says a soft feminine voice. “You’re awake.” He turns his head to survey the young woman. She’s wearing a embroidered white dress with pink flowers stitched along its skirt and at her waist. Her face is pleasant, kind.

                “Rachel,” he growls.

                “Faith,” she corrects him quickly. “I am a member of the family now. I’m here to set you free, Sheriff.”

                “I doubt that very sincerely,” Earl says quietly, forcing himself to turn away when she bends suggestively in front of him, picking up a vial from a nearby table. She opens it and blows its contents in his face. He coughs, wincing at a residual ache in his groin and his ribs when he does so and the room wobbles, reds and greens fogging at the edges of his vision, an unnerving and familiar sensation. “What are you going to do to me?” he demands, hacking for a moment, shaking his head to try to clear it. His throat is burning and he can taste blood when he stops coughing.

                “I told you,” she says, leaning over his chair so her face is inches from his, an inane smile on her face. “I’m going to set you free.” She dissolves into greenish smoke and Earl is standing in a misty field. He shuffles his feet, stumbling at the sudden freedom, the sudden lack of bonds on him. He opens his mouth to call out to the person standing next to them, to ask them what’s going on, but he can’t get words to come out. His eyes burn and his nostrils feel like the time he’d had to mace someone and the wind had blown it back. He coughs and tries again to talk to one of the staggering figures in the field with him, feeling the words get caught in his throat. Like moving in a dream, he can’t seem to get anywhere, it seems like no matter how quickly he walks or runs, the edge of the field is no closer. His voice isn’t working and he feels panic that is almost instantly smothered by a sense of well-being as the mist at his feet rises.

                Earl shakes his head, coughing and tugging at the zip ties where they hold his arms behind him. He hears a giggle and turns his head wildly, sees Faith pacing around him.

                “What the hell is going on?” he snarls, yanking at his bonds, disoriented. Wasn’t he just standing in a field?

                “I told you,” she says, voice echoing, distorted. “I’m going to set you free.”

                “I’m not interested in your brand of freedom,” Earl says, sinking back farther against the chair to avoid her.

                “That’s not what the Father thinks,” Faith says with a smile. She sits suddenly on his lap, her crotch beneath that silky dress just inches from his groin. He swallows. He does not want this, does not want her, but his body is betraying him, the drug making him hyper-aware of every sensation. Faith touches his neck with gentle hands, pulls his hat from his head, strokes his hair. “You know,” she says slowly as she brushes her fingers through his brown-blonde hair, “my brother John likes to mark people with their sins.” Faith looks at his lips, his mustache. “John thinks that stripping a tattoo of it off their flesh helps remove the sin from their souls.” Her eyes flick back up to meet his with sudden intensity. “I disagree. I think that your sin stays with you, even if you accept forgiveness for it. I am more compassionate than my brother – I offer love, acceptance. I accept your sin and will forgive you for it.”

                She strokes his cheek with the back of her fingers gently and he leans away from the touch resolutely. Faith cocks her head, studying him for a long uncomfortable moment. “John thinks your sin is pride. He’s wrong,” she smiles, meeting his eyes. He swallows hard again as her fingers stray down his neck, bump over his chest and she cups them over his groin, feels his hardness through his pants. “It’s _lust_ ,” she whispers in his ear, her hand exploring. She strokes him through the material, grasping at him with that sick smile on her face.

                “Stop that. Get your hands off me, dammit.” Every fiber of his body is disgusted at himself, disgusted at his arousal, but the drug has made every touch, every sensation amplified, ecstatic, and overwhelming. He knows he doesn’t want it, knows he doesn’t want her touching him that way, doesn’t want her touching him at all, but he can’t stop it, can’t control what the touch is doing to him, a normal biological response to stimuli.

                His arousal is not the same as his consent.

                Earl shudders as she squeezes him through his pants and then unzips his zipper, pulling him out and stroking him with a little giggle, like this is all just a game to her. He feels like vomiting but his stomach is empty. Thrashing, he fights her, the chair groaning as he jerks back and forth, trying to get away from her, trying to remove the unwanted touch, feeling so wholly violated as she palms him in her hand with another little laugh. He sees madness in those blue eyes, sees that she’s getting off on assaulting him.

                Earl thinks wildly about the charges he would bring against her in a sane world where a cult hadn’t taken over. Would this be considered rape, or just sexual assault? Regardless of its legal severity, it’s unwanted, makes him feel dirty, cheap. Worthless. Call it whatever you want, it feels like rape to him. “Stop,” he yells, “Stop it, get your fucking hands off me, goddamn it, fuck, no, stop!”

                With a shameful whimper, a final betrayal by his own body, his muscles contract, he ejaculates, the first and only pleasureless orgasm he’s ever experienced in his life.

                “See?” Faith asks, stepping away from him delicately with a little earnest smile as though she didn’t just sexually assault him, as though she didn’t just violate him, as though she didn’t just shatter him to his core. He sits, numb, fly still open, staring at nothing, heart beating hard, mouth hanging open to pull in desperate, shaky breaths. “Lust. Lust is your sin.” Earl finds himself trying to process what was happening to him, what had just happened to him, his hazy brain trying compartmentalize it.

                Earl’s mind goes blank as he sits, dazed, unable to categorize the last part yet, unable to accept its authenticity, unable to accept the reality of his assault. He considered himself a strong, red-blooded American man, capable, generally brave and stereotypically masculine. He had never been brought low by another human being in the way that had just occurred. He didn’t know how to react to it.

                Earl steps forward, reaches a hand out to the person next to him, grabs their shoulder hard and they turn to him, snarling, a white mask covering their mouth. Their eyes are glazed over with green and they raise the shovel they’re holding threateningly, growling at him like a feral dog. He removes his hand from their shoulder, grabbing at his own forehead, blinking stinging eyes, takes a deep breath, trying to reorient himself. The field. The field is open, there’s no fence, no bonds, but he still feels trapped. He stumbles forward, breath coming in wild gasps, struggling for the end, but it just multiplies and multiplies, long stretches of green and golden grass unfolding under his feet, endless.

                Earl snaps awake, his head lolling off his chest. His hands are tingling from the zip ties, his legs are numb. Faith is in front of him, all smiles, all gentle touches.

                “Now that you know your sin, you can become pure again. You can be saved, you just have to dedicate yourself to the Father and he will show you the path to Eden. You can have salvation,” she says gently. Cold fury that has built up in him freezes any other emotion out. When Earl speaks, he speaks slowly, enunciating every word with a chilling hatred, the intensity of which he’s never felt before in his life.

                “You can take your ‘salvation’ and shove it up your lily-white ass,” he tells her unemotionally, his voice dry and calm. He shifts away from her as she draws close again. Faith stares at him for a moment, a little secretive smile on her face.

                “Maybe you’ll listen,” she muses, blowing a powdery smoke in his face, “to a more familiar voice.” He holds his breath, refuses to inhale, but she grabs him by the mouth, covering it with her hand, her strength surprising. Faith holds a small pile of the powder beneath his nostrils. He struggles, grunting from the effort, resisting the urge to suck in air. His vision goes dark at the edges, blocking out the periphery and he feels panic rising yet again, feels his heart beating hard, his lungs burning, desperate for oxygen, but still he refuses to breathe in. The fluttering, darkening edges of his vision are red now, he’s lightheaded, but still fights her, fights the instinct to suck air in through his nostrils. Faith releases her hold on him, steps away, scattering the dust and he chokes, gasping fresh air in desperately with open-mouthed gulps. “There are other ways to make you listen,” she says softly, sounding almost sad. “Other ways to make you see.”

                Faith steps out of a room and Earl sighs with relief, testing his bonds again. His reprieve is short-lived. Sickly green smoke starts flowing into the vents of the room, roiling madly down the walls and across the floor like the fog from dry ice. Struggling violently, he feels something tear in his shoulder as he tugs on the zip ties, desperate to escape before the smoke rising up makes him………

                Bliss. Utter, unadulterated bliss encompasses him like a warm blanket from the dryer. He feels himself slump in the chair, feels his eyes dilate. Every touch of air is pleasurable. He’s not worried about anything now. Earl feels weightless, like he’s being carried somewhere.

                “The Path to Eden is clear to those who have faith,” her voice whispers in his ear.

                “Clem?” Earl calls, voice weak, world spinning.

                “You just have to have faith.” Someone cuts his bonds and he slumps off the chair, collapsing to the cold floor with numb arms and legs, but the staticky pins-and-needles sensation feels euphoric under the influence of Faith’s drug, like tiny fingers massaging him. His head lolls back and he closes his eyes gently, all the fight gone out of him.

                “Can’t you see it?” the feminine voice asks. He opens his blue-green eyes again, sees Clementine leaning over him. He holds out a hand, touches her cheek gently, ignoring his aching shoulder.

                “Clem. You’re alright. My Clementine…”

                “Earl…you have to have faith…” Clementine frames his face with her hands, then strokes his hair, leans down to kiss him. He presses his lips up to hers, wrapping his arms around her waist, embracing her.

                “Clem,” he murmurs, relief at seeing her palpable.

                “You have to have faith, Earl,” she whispers.

                “I have faith in you,” he tells her, meaning it absolutely. He runs his fingers through her red, red hair, smells gardenia and vanilla shampoo. Something is not quite right. Earl shakes himself, clamps his eyes shut hard and opens them with a flutter of his eyelids. The image of her wobbles, but solidifies again, and her hands on him are like heaven’s touch.

                They’re standing in the open field. She takes his hand, drawing him forward and he follows without question. She turns away from him, smiling, staying just out of reach. He trips over the long grass, but is determined to stay with her, would follow her anywhere.

                “The path to Eden is clear,” she murmurs, unbuttoning her blouse, exposing her pert, freckled breasts. She’s drawing him in now, no longer staying out of reach, “to those who have faith,” she whispers, putting his hand on her breast, stroking the inside of his thigh with her other hand. Earl looks into her eyes and frowns. The golden ring around her chocolate brown iris is missing and her eyes look dimmer for it, as though someone has extinguished a light in her. His head hurts as he stares at her, hands stroking over her body but trailing back up to her chest…her chest…he rests his hand on her smooth chest.

                “You’re not here,” he murmurs, fighting the effects of the drug, dragging himself backwards on the floor away from her. The blue sky above him is gone, but then so are his bonds. Her face is not hurt, not concerned, just blank before it succumbs to a small smile that is not one he’s seen on Clementine’s face before. Her features flicker and warp. “You’re not here, this isn’t you. You’re safe, you’re safe, Clem, you’re safe.” Earl musters every fiber of will he has in his body and blinks hard, clenching his teeth. Clementine vanishes in a whirl of smoke and he is alone. He’s in a cell now, complete with bars and bed and toilet. The only other thing in the cell is a noose hanging from the bars that crisscross beneath the concrete ceiling of his prison. He turns his head and sees the metal chair he had been tied to.

                “You know she’ll never want you again,” comes Faith’s sinister voice. “She’ll know you cheated. You’re an honest man, Sheriff. You’ll have to tell her. You’ll have to come clean. How do you think she’ll feel about what you did? You must have wanted it. You must have wanted me more than her.”

                “No. No. NO!” Earl bellows, rising to his feet and stumbling toward the bars of the cell, grabbing them and looking out wildly, looking for the body that belongs to that eerie, whispering voice. Several people are stumbling around outside his cell, masks over their mouths. They turn to look at him blankly, their expressions slack, their eyes glazed over with green film. They are carrying sticks or garden tools, the objects scraping hard along the floor, making squealing, rasping noises as they circle like grounded vultures.

                “I told you, your sin is lust.” She giggles in his ear and he whirls, ready to strangle her to death with his bare hands.

                “It wasn’t my fault,” he says, more to convince himself than anyone who may have been listening. “It wasn’t my fault. You did this to me,” he insists to the disembodied voice, furious.

                “Do you really think she’ll see it that way, Sheriff?” That green gas is pouring into his cell again and he can’t avoid it, can’t avoid breathing it in, can’t avoid the odd sensation that covers him like a heavy blanket. Flickering at first, and then solidifying, Clementine appears, jagged scars on her chest.

                “How could you, Earl?” she asks, tears streaming down her cheeks. “Am I not good enough for you? Don’t you love me?”

                “Please,” he begs, going to his knees in front of her, ignoring the crack of bone against concrete as his patellas slam into the floor. “Forgive me, Clementine, please forgive me. It wasn’t my fault.”

                “It wouldn’t have happened if you didn’t want it, Earl. First the wedding ring you refuse to take off, now this?” She shakes her head sadly at him. “I’m done.” She vanishes and Earl takes a hard, shuddering breath, chest aching like his heart was just torn out.

                “The Path to Eden is clear to those who have faith…” He clenches his teeth so hard he feels a filling crack.

                “I don’t want Eden without her, I don’t want paradise without her, I don’t want heaven without her, I just want her,” he whispers, voice trembling.

                “Why can’t you accept salvation, Sheriff? Why can’t you accept forgiveness?” The voice goes silent for a long, still moment. “Maybe John was right. Maybe we’re both right. Lust _and_ pride. If you won’t accept our forgiveness, then you should just end it. What’s left to live for? You failed. Your rookie is dead. Your deputies are dead. Clementine doesn’t want you. She’ll come to us now, she’ll find peace with our family. This is all your fault. Just release yourself from it. Just give in. Give in to the Bliss. Don’t you want to be free?” Earl turns his head slowly to face the noose slowly swinging from the cell bars, simultaneous depression and euphoria tugging him in two. He puts a hand on the chair, its legs scraping the floor as he drags it to his own doom.

                That song. That fucking song is playing from somewhere nearby, maybe it’s just in his mind, he doesn’t know, can’t separate what’s real and what’s hallucination anymore. He murmurs it absently, remembers the choir singing it softly at his mother’s funeral after the cancer had taken her, remembers his father singing it loudly when he beat him as a child, remembers it playing eerily before he and his deputies had been captured by the cult. It had never been a comfort to him, it had been a curse, a song of melancholy and woe.

                “Amazing grace….how sweet………the sound….” The words are tumbling out of him, miserable, defeated.

                Earl Whitehorse has failed so utterly, so completely, that he doesn’t see a point in fighting anymore. His heart aches again as he thinks of Clementine. He thinks of Clementine. He thinks of Clementine.

                He thinks of Clementine.

                She would not blame him. She would not accuse him. She would forgive him. With a rough groan, he drops the chair. It clatters as its legs land, a hard metallic sound.

                The walls of the prison drop away. Earl stumbles, falls, scrapes his palms on rough dirt and gravel. He looks up to blue sky above him, looks around at tall golden and green grass waving serenely in the warm afternoon breeze. He stands, wipes his face with his hand, leans over to pick up his hat from where it has fallen. Did none of that happen? Was none of it real? The masked figures are stumbling around the field with him, shovels and hoes and rakes in their hands, tending the garden. Green smoke flutters off their shoulders, surrounding them in a surreal ethereal haze. He grimaces, his knees aching. Was it real? Was this real? Was anything real anymore? He flickers between primeval horror and uncaring bliss, unsure what is happening, what has happened and what will happen.

                “Sheriff. Sheriff!” He turns to look, dazed, sees a familiar face. “We gotta get you out of here, but we don’t have much time. We have to hurry. We have to go right now before they come back. I need you to stand up for me, Sheriff, you’re too heavy for me to carry you out.”

                “Tracey?” Her arm is around his waist, his arm is slung over her shoulders and she’s half-guiding, half-dragging him. He’s got at least eight inches and seventy-five pounds of height and weight advantage on her, but she’s muscling underneath him, holding his large frame up valiantly.

                “You have to trust me. I’m going to get you out of here. Come on,” she says, looking fearfully over her shoulder as she unlocks the door. “If you stay much longer, your mind will be gone, Whitehorse. We have to go _now.”_ Earl stares at her blankly, consciousness still in a fog. “Sheriff!” she raises her voice and his unfocused eyes meet hers. He shakes himself, tries to walk faster, but his legs are tingling like the bonds have only recently been cut off them. “We have to go, come on. The Bliss will rot your brain if you stay much longer. Let’s go.” There is bright sunlight now, a blue sky and a red sedan parked between a bunker door and an open field. “Virgil! Start the car!” Earl stops in his tracks, grabs her arm hard, his eyes suddenly focused and his tone urgent.

                “Was it real? Did it really happen?” Tracey looks at him sadly. “Is this real? Are you real?” he pleads, feeling like he’s lost his mind.

                “I don’t know what happened to you in there, Sheriff, I don’t have answers for you yet, I just know we need to leave before Faith comes back to reap the Angels. This right here, right now, is real, and we have to go.” She glances down awkwardly. “And, Sheriff…your fly is down.”


	8. Gunpowder and Lead

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Clementine has to escape from the cult again and find Earl. Hijinks ensue.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No trigger warnings for this chapter, but a family member's death is mentioned.
> 
> Please leave comments and reviews, I live for attention. :)  
> ________________________________________________________________________________________________________

                If he is still alive, Earl is going to kill her when he sees her again.

                He’s going to find out that she snuck out of the Whitetail militia’s bunker, that she left safety and went in search of him, and he would strangle her with his bare hands. The last thing he had said from her, aside from “I love you” was, “Be safe. Stay here and I’ll be back for you. Don’t go trying to be a hero.”

                Technically Clem wasn’t trying to be a hero.

                She was just trying to rescue her friends. She couldn’t sit idly by while the cult took over the last remaining parts of the county they hadn’t already and she had to know what had happened to Rook and Earl and the others.

                The problem was, she got caught. Again. Annoyed, she struggles against her bonds, glaring daggers at the woman in front of her, who is adjusting pressure valves on a container of that drug they made from the flowers, Bliss. Having felt its effects before, Clem had no desire to do so again, no desire to feel a loss of autonomy, no desire to feel euphoria so powerful that jumping off a statue seems like not such a bad idea.

                “Isn’t this one the one the sheriff was fucking?” her male captor asks with a laugh, squatting down in front of where Clem is tied up and sitting on her knees, booted feet folded uncomfortably beneath and behind her in her kneeling position. One of her eyes is swollen mostly shut and purple-blue, but with the other, she surveys her captor like an angry tiger.

                “Yep, that’s the badge bunny, the one they got the arrest warrant on. Dumb fuckers. They walked right into the compound to take the Father like they thought we wouldn’t kill them all for it,” the woman says idly while still looking at the gauges on the tank, focused on her task.

                “From what I hear, we didn’t kill any of them. They’re all still alive for some reason,” the male cultist says to his companion as she continues fiddling with the Bliss tank.

                “Hey,” the woman says, turning, eyeing Clementine suspiciously. “Not here.” Clementine feels her heart soar. They’re still alive. _He’s_ still alive. She had left the Whitetail bunker the day after the warrant was supposed to be served. No one in or near the bunker had heard from the deputies, and everyone had assumed the worst, Eli included. Knowing that Earl is alive brings such relief that Clementine feels tears welling in her eyes. She had been caught between the Henbane River and the Whitetail Mountains four days after she left the bunker. That was ten days ago. She’d been kept in various houses and outposts until someone had realized who she was and turned her over to this new group, which was headed back to the Whitetail Mountains, back where she’d come from. Back toward Jacob. This group had been planting Bliss tanks as they moved, dragging her along as an afterthought, an inconvenience. She tugs at the zip ties around her wrists idly, thinking, planning.

                Clementine had no military experience, but she’d been raised to be prepared for survival situations, and she knows firearms, martial arts and tracking because of it.

                Trained by a retired game warden turned nature guide, she had learned nearly everything there was to know about hunting and surviving in the wilderness from her father. He had taught her how to snare, how to shoot and how to track long before she ever went to school to study wildlife biology and management. Born and raised in Idaho, she’d probably spent more of her life outside than in. Her mother, a mechanical engineer, had never been much for the great outdoors, but she did enjoy teaching Clementine how to tinker, how to improve and modify traps and camping equipment. Clem had essentially been raised by a female MacGyver and Grizzly Adams. She thinks fondly of her parents, heart tugging a little bit when she thinks of the accident. It had happened just after she had received her acceptance letter to Montana State University. She had rushed home from the post office, thrilled to tell her parents, but had pulled up to find a patrol car in their driveway. The two police officers had turned to her, asked her if she knew who her parents were. Of course she did. They asked to come inside. She let them. They asked her if there was anyone she could call. There wasn’t. Her parents had been killed by a drunk driver early that morning. She had gone numb, listening to the police, processing the tragedy. Her mother and father had always enjoyed waking up early, usually well before dark, and getting breakfast together every Saturday.

                “But it’s not Saturday,” she’d argued, breaking down into tears. “It’s not Saturday.”

                Turns out the local IHOP was offering half-priced all-you-can-eat pancakes that Friday morning.

                She’d never really been able to enjoy pancakes ever since.

                As she was thinking about her parents, she was recalling all the things they’d taught her. Contingencies, escape plans, basic martial arts for defense, more advanced martial arts for the discipline. The cultists had only gotten the drop on her because they were using trained wolves to track non-cultists. Escape, once she was found, was not an option. They had her outgunned and then some. She wasn’t sure where they got all the military-grade weapons, but her shotgun had been no match for at least five automatic rifles pointed at her face. But now there were only two cultists guarding her, one weapon apiece, and those are strapped to their sides, not in-hand. The others had left to do various errands, or whatever the fuck it is cultists do when they aren’t terrorizing the locals. Two she could deal with. Taking her mind off pancakes and the residual sadness associated with them, Clementine had slowly, carefully sunk her weight down on her ankles, ignoring the grinding of joints as she did so. She got her hand to her ankle, grabbed the top of her hiking boot, found the end of the shoelace and followed it carefully to its source, untying the knot and pulling the string out of the grommets, movements slow and patient.

                “Remind me again why we’re dragging this one around?” the female cultist asks her bearded compatriot.

                “Needs to be taken to Jacob, apparently. We’re headed that way anyway, so we drew the short straw. Nichols is coming by to get her from us this afternoon, he’ll do the final transport. This one knows something about bears and wolves. Gonna help him train his Judges or something, I guess.” He shrugs.

                No the fuck she was not, Clementine thinks, gritting her teeth against the pain of forcing her wrists to bend at unnatural angles. She manages to get a long enough strand of shoelace loose and wraps it tight around her index finger after she has laced the string through the zip tie on her other wrist. Slowly, carefully, she bobs her finger up and down, up and down, up and down, careful to drop her shoulders so the cultists won’t see the movement behind her back. It seems to take an eternity, but eventually the rough plastic of the boot lace saws through the softer plastic of the zip tie and her hands are free. She pulls the shoelace the rest of the way out of her boot with measured, wary tugs of her fingers, keeping her hands behind her back and watching her captors’ vigilantly as they work on the Bliss tank they had set up. She knows there’s probably another van coming soon to pick her up, to take her to Jacob. She has to escape before that happens.

                A shock of adrenaline goes through her and she tries not to shake with nervous anticipation as she grabs one end of the lace with each hand, preparing to garrote whichever cultist approaches her first.

                Clementine never gets the opportunity.

\--

                Charity watches from the bushes through her scope, breathing slowly where she lies on her belly. She adjusts the bipod of her sniper rifle as the cultists below meander back and forth, making adjustments to the angle of its barrel and screwing the heavy silencer to the rifle’s end.

                “Watch me, I’m movin’,” Sharky says over the radio. Charity ignores him, watches the movement below. Slowly, carefully, she zooms the scope in and smiles.

                “No incendiary bullets this time, Sharky,” she murmurs into her headset.

                “But–”

                “And no argument,” she snaps in a whisper. “I’ll take the tall one, you take the short one.”

                “You take Lurch, I’ll blow a hole in the shorty, that’s a big ten-four, Dep.”

                “Shut the fuck up, asshole, we’re trying to be stealthy,” Charity whispers, but she’s smiling. She aims, takes a breath, fires. Sharky darts out of the tree line and fires as well. With a grunt, the cultists fall to the ground, both dead. “Fancy meeting you here,” Charity says dryly as Clementine staggers to her feet, a zip tie still dangling from one wrist.

                “Oh, thank God you’re alive,” Clementine says, embracing Charity tightly for a moment.

                “Well, helloooo, Shorty,” Sharky purrs, putting on his best blue steel. Clementine looks the man over, takes in the Mountain Dew colored sweatshirt that asks “What are you smiling at?” in red print and surveying his modified shotgun with reservation. It looks like it might blow up in his face given the opportunity. “Who’s this, Dep?” Sharky asks, attempting to sling the gun smoothly over his shoulder and whapping himself in the ear with it instead. Charity gives him a look and smirks.

                “That is Sheriff Whitehorse’s girlfriend,” she informs him, amusement in her eyes.

                “Oh, uhm, oh. It’s nice to meet you, ma’am,” he says sheepishly, his bravado instantly melting.

                “Did this motherfucker just call me ‘ma’am’?” Clem asks, jutting a finger at Sharky and looking at Charity, but though her tone is insulted, there’s amusement twinkling in her golden-brown eyes.

                “Sharky, this is Clementine, Clementine, this is Charlemagne Victor Boshaw the fourth, but only his mama calls him that.”

                “My mama blew up in her drug lab ten years ago, God rest her soul,” Sharky murmurs, removing his cap and wiping his brow.

                “Jesus, Sharky,” Charity says, mouth agape.

                “What? I’m joking. She died of a heart attack at the Burger King in Three Forks.” Charity stares at him for a minute as though trying to decide if he’s serious this time. She shakes her head and looks away, muttering something about how she should have arrested him on sight before she turns back to Clementine, taking in the black eye and stiff movements of her friend.

                “You alright?” Clementine rubs her wrists, taking a knife out of the sheath belonging to one of the dead cultists and cutting off the remaining zip tie.

                “I’m fine. Where’s Earl?” Charity’s face goes grim.

                “I don’t know, but I know where I’m gonna start. This has been playing on loop,” she says, keying a button on her radio.

                “Hey it’s Virgil Minkler speaking, anyone looking for refuge, come to the Hope County Jail, we have beds and food here.” Clementine goes a little pale.

                “The mayor’s going to bring the cult down on them.”

                “He means well, but, yeah. You’re right. And it’s as good a place as any to look for Whitehorse,” Charity says.

                “Let’s go, then,” Clementine says, picking up an AR-15 and some ammo. She grabs a sidearm as well, along with the belt it’s attached to and re-ties her bootlace. They pile into the Jeep Sharky had hidden down the road, but Charity hops out after starting the car, saying,

                “Just a minute.” She returns at a sprint, and with a massive _BOOM!!!_ Clementine understands why as the Bliss tank and the building surrounding it explode, raining metal and wood shards down through the pine canopy of the forest. Jumping back into the driver’s seat, she wipes dust and debris off her shoulders and head, clears her throat. “Looks like it might rain later,” she comments mildly.

                “Are you seriously talking to me about the weather right now?” Clementine asks, amused. “After blowing up Cult property like it’s something you do everyday?” Charity had often struggled with confidence, trying very hard to fill her father’s shoes after he had been killed in the line of duty. It was the reason why she’d applied for deputy, but she had been terrified she wouldn’t make it through the end of her probationary period. Clementine guessed that wasn’t a concern anymore as her friend smirks, adjusting the arsenal of explosives piled in her bag before putting it down on the floorboard at Clem’s feet. “When did you learn how to deal with explosives?” Clementine queries, staring into Charity’s backpack where grenades and homemade proximity bombs sit, making Clem a little nervous every time the Jeep hits a bump.

                “The very instant they started trying to use them on me,” Charity growls, gripping the wheel tight as she accelerates down the road.

                “Yeah, cuz, you know, I didn’t teach you anything,” Sharky mutters, sounding insulted. “I’m totally not the one who taught you how to build a remote explosive laced with human feces.” His arms are across his chest, his face annoyed from missing out on calling shotgun.

                “We’re _not_ doing that, Sharky.”

                “It is an effective biological weapon, Popo, don’t argue with science,” Sharky squawks.

                “I am not handling human shit, Sharky,” Charity informs him and he huffs. “The skunk gland smoke grenades were bad enough. And you call me ‘Popo’ again I’m gonna shove my baseball bat up your ass wide end first, Sharky,” she threatens him, but Clem can tell it’s all jest, no real threat.

                “Holy shit, kid. Remind me not to piss you off,” Clementine says to Charity, laughing and ignoring Sharky’s sarcastic response from the back seat.


	9. Hope County Jail

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Finally reunited, both Earl and Clementine have to cope with what has happened to them so far.

                “I thought you quit, Sheriff,” comes Virgil’s voice. Earl takes a deep, hard drag on his cigarette, forcing dark thoughts out of his mind as the chipper Mayor steps outside the jail to talk to him. He hums a noise in answer. Virgil stands next to him, looking out over the valley. “Those thing’s’ll kill ya, you know,” he nods to himself. Earl looks over at him, blows smoke away from him.

                “I’ve quit about four times since I started,” he murmurs, voice soft. He shrugs “Figure another heart attack’s gonna take me before I get too much older anyway,” Earl quips. He kept feeling his heart beating hard, rushing like it had somewhere important to be. Occasionally his left arm would feel tight, like someone had wrapped a tourniquet around it. Other times his chest would ache, his breath short and gasped. At this point he really can’t tell if he’s been having symptoms of a heart attack or a panic attack, all he knows is thinking of Clementine in the hands of the cult is the cause every time. He can see Virgil looking at him out of the corner of his eye.

                “You – you okay there, Earl?”

                “I’m fine, Virgil.” Earl takes another deep draw from his cigarette, letting the rough smoke fill his lungs and holding it in for a moment before he exhales. “Just fine.”

                “Well, okay, Earl. Looks like it’s fixin’ to rain. I’m headed back inside. You, uh, you comin’?”

                “I’ll be in in a bit,” Earl says with irritation in his tone. Black and blue-gray thunderclouds have gathered in the distance, shading the mountains and throwing deep shadows over the valley. Earl smells the familiar scent of petrichor and ozone. Thunder rumbles overhead and Earl leans against the brick wall of the jail, crossing his arms across his chest. He leans his head back, allowing the brim of his hat to sit along the hard line of his shoulders. He wonders if Clementine is okay. He wonders how Rook is doing. His relief at hearing she was still alive had tempered the misery of not knowing if Clementine is alright.

                Virgil had started broadcasting food, beds and safety over the radio, so the past week and a half had passed fighting attacking groups of Peggies and helping locals seeking safety and refuge from the cult.

                At least there had been something to do, something to distract Earl from intrusive thoughts, from memories of haunting dissociation, something to focus on aside from wondering what had been real and what had been hallucinated before Tracey had saved him from Faith’s imprisonment. Helping the remnants of the community had made the time go by, but it didn’t make missing Clementine any easier.

                “Incoming!” yells a voice, and he drops the cigarette, stomping it into the gravel before trotting to the front wall, weapon drawn, safety off. The cultists are swarming from the road and the surrounding woods, tossing Molotovs over the walls. It seems like no matter how many cultists they drop, more keep coming, streaming out of the forest like angry wasps. He hears a pained wheeze next to him as a stocky woman takes a bullet to the chest. He stops to put a hand over the sucking wound, but she’s dead before he touches her. Swearing, he aims at another cultist. Over the wall sails another Molotov, shuddering flame flicking from the neck of the bottle. It smashes open near him and he kicks his leg to put out the fire on his pant cuff before he puts a bullet through the thrower’s skull. He sees a thin, familiar figure sneaking in from the north, arrows thunking through cultist’s shoulders and backs and they drop with grunts of pain. Relief washes through him at the sight of her.

                “Hey is that you, Rook? Thank Christ, help us out here!” A bullet whizzes past his head and he ducks, yelling to Tracey, “Let’s get these sons…don’t give ‘em an inch!” He gives her an encouraging smile, the first smile he’s felt sincerely for days. Rook obliterates the rest of the cultists outside and staggers through the gates, panting.

                “Holy shit, Rook?! You really saved our bacon,” he tells her, patting her proudly on the shoulder. He looks back at where two men are moving a body. Someone else is crying for a medic nearby. “They’ve been throwing themselves at these walls for days. Just won’t let up,” he tells her, voice haunted. “Hmm. We kicked open a hornet’s nest,” he admits, clenching his teeth.

                “Trucks on the road!” a voice screams before there’s a gunshot and the scout’s body drops from the wall, landing with a sickening thud on his back.

                “Dammit,” Earl yells, bending over to check on him. He yells over his shoulder “Medic!!!” He turns back to his junior deputy. “Rook, I need you up on that wall!” He sees a familiar figure with her, but doesn’t have time to comment. Trucks are headed in and all hell’s breaking loose. He fires desperately, pulling the injured to their feet, tossing ammo to those that need it. He clambers up the ladder to the top of the wall, aiming and firing as more cultists pull up, some of them crawling up the walls before they can be stopped.

                “They’re at the west wall! West wall!” comes a yell and Earl follows Rook there, tossing a grenade at one of the trucks and aiming a shotgun at one of the bearded goons. Two weeks ago he’d never shot a man in his life. Now he’d lost count of how many he’d killed. Putting it out of his mind, he winces when a bullet grazes his shoulder, a stinging burn he has to ignore for now.

                “Fuel truck incoming!” Tracey yells.

                “Rook, stop that truck, it’s headed for the gates!” Earl yells, pointing at the accelerating tanker. Rook fires on it, hitting tires and engine compartment and finally just shooting at the tank to try to stop it. The thing explodes, but too close. With a shuddering boom the gates fling wide and three more pickup trucks stream in with speakers blaring cult music at a volume that makes Earl clamp his hands over his ears for a moment, wincing.

                “We gotta destroy those speakers,” Tracey yells over the din. “They’re gonna bring angels!”

                “I got this, Dep,” the familiar figure shouts, jumping down and pulling explosives from his backpack.

                Angels stream in and the little army of defenders shoot like mad, trying to bring the zombie-like Bliss addicts down before they can get any closer. With a crash and another ear-splitting boom, the trucks explode, knocking Earl off his feet. The little gaggle of fighters destroy the remaining angels and cultists and Earl finds he is drenched in sweat, panting hard as they fight to put out the fires that were sparked from the explosions. Earl takes over, giving orders and designating people for jobs quickly. This was the shit he was trained for, the kind of leadership opportunity he’d been waiting years to have. Coordinating fighters and fighting for good makes his heart sing, makes the several years of boredom as sheriff of a sleepy little county worth it, makes him feel like he can unfuck a situation he had allowed to get so out of hand.

                “Rogers, there’s an arc welder somewhere inside, Footy was using it last, get on it,” he orders the man, knowing they needed to repair the gates before more cultists showed up at their door. He turns back to Rook. “You’re with me. Let’s start collecting scrap. If you have to pull the doors off some of the cells, do it!” he yells at another volunteer. “Now, hop to! We ain’t got much time!” He walks toward the side doors of the prison, sees Tracy helping a quiet woman named Jen carry an injured man. “There problems?” he asks her tensely.

                “No, couple of the Peggies scaled the wall, but we got ‘em,” she says, nodding to him encouragingly. “Door,” she orders Rook.

                “That doesn’t look too bad,” Earl says to Percy, the injured man on the stretcher. “You’ll be alright, just keep pressure on it.” Rook opens the door for them all to walk through. “You know,” Earl tells her, climbing the steps a little out of breath, “I was gonna retire last year.” He looks at her with amusement. “Was worried I’d get bored.”

                “Hey, are you gonna introduce us, or are we just gonna stand around here all awkward and shit?” Tracey demands, moving Percy gently toward the infirmary.

                “Language!” hollers Virgil, looking personally offended.

                “Oh fuck off, Virgil, not today,” Tracy snaps as Virgil holds open the door to the infirmary for them.

                “I have told you a vulgar mind is a sign of…” her look cuts him off and he splutters for a moment. “You’re not wearing your button!” he hollers indignantly.

                “No, I’m not wearing it,” Tracey gripes, backing Percy’s stretcher toward the nearest bed.

                “We’ll need a casualty report,” Earl says as an aside to Rhonda, who’s carrying a clipboard, looking grim.

                “But we’re Cougars,” Virgil continues, following Tracey.

                “We’re really not,” she insists, annoyed.

                “Look, I’m wearing my button, the sheriff is wearing his button,” Virgil points.

                “Ugh, don’t bring me into this,” Earl mutters too quietly to be heard.

                “This person,” Virgil points at Rook, “I’m sorry, who is this?” he demands, looking at Earl expectantly.

                “This is one of my deputies,” Earl says with a proud smile and a pat on Rook’s shoulder. Tracey has her arms crossed tightly over her chest, looking skeptical.

                “I thought you said your deputies were taken,” she demands.

                “This one wasn’t,” Earl says with another little smile at Rook. “Been givin’ Eden’s Gate a hell of a time, from what I hear.” He gives a little laugh, feeling like part of the weight has been lifted from his shoulders. He knew Charity had potential, but she’d always been too timid in the field, too squirrelly about being aggressive when aggression was needed, while sometimes losing her temper when the situation didn’t call for it. She was doing a damn fine job now.

                “Well, I hope you plan on pitching in,” Tracey tells Rook, lip curling a little. “No room for freeloaders.” With that, she storms out of the room. Earl laughs with true amusement at the look of bewilderment on Rook’s face at Tracey’s churlish demeanor.

                “Ah, Tracey’s alright once she gets to know ya,” he reassures her. “She’s right about the work though. There’s plenty to be done around here. Just ask around.” He pats her again on the shoulder, chest hot with fatherly pride. “Good to have you back, Rook.” Virgil holds out a “Hope County Cougars” team pin to Rook, but she doesn’t take it. He forces it into her hand and she looks at him silently, one eyebrow raised.

                “Okay, then,” he says, skittering away. Shaking his head, Earl is stepping through the doorway out of the room when a small figure slams into him, talking ninety miles a minute.

                “Hey, Charity, I checked around the woods, there’s no stragglers right now and…” she stops for a moment when she smacks into Earl’s chest, awkward gaps between her words as she loses her train of thought, “I…don’t…think…there’s gonna….be…” Rook shuffles awkwardly out the infirmary’s backdoor without another word. Smart kid.

                “I thought I told you to stay in that bunker,” Earl says softly, staring at the bemused red-head in front of him, frowning at her black eye.

                “Yeah, well, I’ve been trying to piss you off enough to get you to cuff me,” Clem responds. “Did it work?” Earl puts his warm hands on either side of her face and it’s like all is right with the world again. She leans into the touch, feeling the callouses on his fingers, testaments to hard work. She turns her head to kiss his palm and he leans down to kiss her as she pulls his hat off his head. Earl backs her up into the wall, kissing her hard, crushing his lips to hers, holding her waist roughly with his hands until she lets out a little stifled cry of pain.

                “Office,” he growls, “now.” They push into a small office area between the infirmary and the main lobby. Earl had drug a metal-framed bed from the warden’s quarters into the office a week and a half ago when he had arrived here, claiming the cramped space as his room, his escape from frightened, needy residents of Hope County when he needed it. He locks the door and knocks Clem off her feet, slamming her back onto the bed roughly. Its springs squeak as she lands with a huff. She’s a little surprised, but she’s into it, her eyes dilating as arousal courses through her. She strokes him through his pants and finds that nothing happens. Sitting up, she cocks her head, concerned. He looks away from her, avoiding her eye and cursing under his breath. He puts his face in his hands, shoulders tensing in fury.

                “Earl.” He doesn’t look at her, just stares at the wall for a minute and she sees his jaw clench.

                “Faith captured me.”

                “Okay,” Clem says, wanting to encourage him to talk about it. Clearly something is wrong. “You got out.” He snorts.

                “Tracey and Virgil got me out. I was useless. Drugged.” There’s a long painful pause and he glances at her out of the corner of his eye, looking ashamed. “She…Faith…she put her hands on me, I think. I don’t know. I don’t even know if it was real. I think it was real. My fly was down.” Clem’s stomach sinks and then leaps at the implication. She feels sick.

                “Oh.” She waits.

                “She accused me of lust. The cult’s got a habit of labelling everyone with their sins…”

                “I know,” she murmurs, bending her knees and wrapping her arms around her legs, a defensive position.

                “Evidently…evidently she thought she needed to demonstrate that was my sin.” He sighs, wipes his face again with a broad hand, shoulders slumping now. “She…” he swallows and she can tell it’s hard for him to talk about it, that admitting what happened is hurting his pride. She waits, patient. “She touched me without my permission. She unzipped my pants. She…” he grits his teeth again, his voice going cold and angry. “I told her ‘no.’ She didn’t listen. She took me in her hand. The drug…I couldn’t, I couldn’t stop it. When that shit gets in your system…”

                “Everything feels like bliss,” she finishes, nodding. “I know.” She unfolds, reaches out a gentle hand, puts it on his shoulder. He flinches.

                “And I just…couldn’t stop it.” He turns to her, green-blue eyes so sad under those soft caterpillar brows she feels like she’s going to cry looking into them. “I didn’t want to do that. I didn’t want her hand on me, touching me like that. You have to believe me, Clementine, please. Forgive me.”

                “Earl.” Clem pauses for a moment, takes a deep, calming breath to steady herself. “I know. I know you didn’t. She took advantage of you. Drugged you. What kind of person would I be if I blamed you for that? Of course I forgive you, but honestly, Earl, there’s nothing for me to forgive. I think maybe you should try to forgive yourself if you really think you deserve any blame at all for someone assaulting you.” He is utterly silent, barely breathing. “Are you okay?” she asks finally.

                “I don’t know,” he murmurs.

                “Can you go get some gauze and some salve?” she asks. He turns to her, frowning a bit.

                “What?” Earl says stupidly, not understanding. Clementine unbuttons the top two buttons of her blouse, reminding him. “Oh.” She had faced trauma too. She had been hurt too. Maybe not in the same way, but she understood well enough. He steps out, leaving his hat behind. When he returns a few moments later with salve and bandages, she is naked on the bed. He steps up to her nonchalantly, gently prying the bandage off her chest. He brushes calloused fingers over the bud of her nipple experimentally and she runs her hand over his groin. He shudders again, trying to push anxiety away. He rubs salve on her tight, scabbed wound as she unzips him, reaches a hand in, massages him. He tries to focus on his task, but her hand is soft, skilled, warm. This is Clementine. This is the woman he loves. That is her hand, her fingers, her breath on his arm as he touches her in return, caring for her wounds as she cares for his. He presses tape to the gauze, his breath catching as she slides his uniform pants down his legs. She leans over, her chest now out of his reach and replaces her hands with her mouth. He shivers, closing his eyes and allowing relief to flow through him. She didn’t blame him. She did not accuse him. She forgave him.

                Earl feels interest perk downstairs finally, feels all systems go and in a flash of arousal, he flicks his eyes open, pushes her back and presses her into the bed, stripping the rest of his clothing off after checking that the office door is still locked.

                Earl grabs her wrist roughly and jangles the cuffs he had snatched off his belt, circling one of her pale, freckled wrists and snapping the other side of the cuff to the bed frame with a definitive click.

                “Sweet Jesus,” she mutters under her breath, her back arching up wildly. He slides into her with a satisfied groan, sinks into her in a way that feels just like going home, that warm, wet slick a sweet familiarity.

                When they finally step out of the office, Clementine’s wrist is red and scraped raw, but her face is satisfied and she looks perfectly relaxed. Earl had never detained a suspect who was so happy to be in his custody. There are a few people in the infirmary, and judging by their expressions, they all heard Clem demanding the sheriff do some absolutely filthy things to her for the past hour or so, and he knows full-well how loudly the frame of the cot had been ramming against the concrete wall of the jail. He tries very hard to keep a straight face, his cheeks going a little red. If Virgil had pearls around his neck, Earl knows he’d be clutching them the way the man looks at him, gawping. Earl adjusts his belt more comfortably on his hips and says,

                “Not a word, Virgil. And I’m going to go have a cigarette, goddammit. I don’t want your commentary on that, either.” Earl strides past him, a little smirk on his face, showing white teeth and a satisfied expression.

                “Language, Earl,” Virgil hollers hoarsely after him as the sheriff steps out of the building with a swagger back in his step.

                “Honey, if you don’t like what just came out of Earl’s mouth, then I’m about to hurt your feelings,” Clementine says, “Because _fuck_ I love that man,” she declares with force, watching him go.

 


	10. Hypocrisy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A little bit of fluff before bad stuff.

                “I tell ya, it’s good to see you again, Rook, and better seein’ that you can take care of yourself,” Earl says sincerely, watching rain splatter the ground and enjoying the cool breeze the storm has brought with it. “Cult does a bang up job of preyin’ on the weak. Wasn’t sure about you before. I am now.” Rook just looks at him, nods, quiet. “These people need your help, Rook. I’m glad you’re here. Glad you made it,” Earl admits after taking a drag of his cigarette. Rook stands mildly next to him inside the guard tower. A light breeze is swirling through, pushing the smoke out as soon as Earl exhales. “What’s your plan, Rook?” She shrugs, takes a drink of water. Rain patters softly on the roof of the tower, thunder rumbling through the valley after a flick of bright lightning. She finally speaks.

                “Dunno. Was thinking I’d start by working my way over to Holland Valley first. Got a radio call from the Ryes. We get some air support, it could be helpful.”

                “Hmm,” Earl agrees with a hum, scratching the back of his head. “You really think it’s a good idea to run with a wanted criminal, Rook?” She grins suddenly.

                “Sharky’s harmless.” He stares at her skeptically and her gaze flicks to his and then away. “Well, harmless enough provided you have burn cream available. He’s definitely a pyromaniac” She scratches a patch of red, blistered skin on her forearm sheepishly. “Of course, if it bothers you that much, I guess I can just take Clem with me.” Charity seems to sense his sudden anger, his protective swell of shoulders and chest, wanting to argue with her, but not wanting to admit how much it would scare him if she did take Clem away from him. “Kidding,” she says, glancing at him awkwardly. “Are….are you okay, Sheriff?” God, he’s getting tired of being asked that question.

                “I’m not ready for a nursing home yet,” he says by way of answer, knows it’s not actually an answer, just an avoidance of the question. This whole situation had him out-of-sorts and he was glad Rook was available to help here, to do the running around he no longer had the energy for. He was needed at the jail, could help his deputy by feeding her information over the radio and keeping the county residents who were sheltering here safe.

                “What happened after the crash?” Rook asks him softly after a few minutes of silence, face earnest. Earl clenches his jaw. He’d thought about this, thought about what he’d say if anyone asked him. He takes another puff at his cigarette and then drops it, crushing it beneath his heel. He really didn’t want to talk about this, but he knows Rook deserves an explanation, and she certainly deserves a heads-up about Faith’s drug.

                “After our helicopter went down, I don’t remember much,” Earl lies, not meeting Rook’s intense gaze. She’s quiet lately, more quiet than he remembers her being anyway. She didn’t follow him around like a lost puppy like she used to while he was training her. He wonders if she’s not a little shell-shocked from all of this. “I remember bein’ in a field, walkin’ around with other people. Wanted to talk to ‘em, but I couldn’t. Words didn’t come out.” He crosses his arms over his chest, staring out across the valley in front of the jail instead of looking at Rook while he speaks. “There was mist all around. My eyes were sore, nostrils stung and I had a bad taste in my mouth.” He swallows. “I remember seein’ Faith,” he mutters, flashes of blue eyes, of hands touching him flick through him and he shudders, “I’d hear her, too. Don’t know if she was ever really there or not. I was conscious of all these things. I knew I was trapped, but any worry was offset by a feeling of euphoria.” He hears her shift her weight, adjust the strap of her bow across her shoulders. He turns to her with a tight smile, trying to feel like the authority figure he knows she still sees him as. “That’s the Bliss, Rook. You best stay away from it.”

                Sharky Boshaw walks up, looking a little nervous as he eyes Earl, shaking raindrops from his hoodie. Earl had arrested him at least six times in the past two years alone, usually for lighting something on fire, but twice for public intoxication.

                “Hey, hoss,” he greets.

                “Howdy, fella,” Earl responds, trying to sound friendly. If Sharky’s helping Rook, that’s good enough reason to ignore his history of fiery destruction. For now.

                “Hey, honey,” Clementine greets Earl, crawling up the ladder after Sharky carefully, holding a mug. She hands him the cup of coffee handle first so he doesn’t scald his hand. He leans down, kisses her softly on the cheek.

                “Goddamn, that is a lucky man, Dep,” Sharky mutters.

                “Shut the fuck up, Sharky,” Charity says, but there’s no venom in her tone.

                “Well, I’m just saying maybe I wouldn’t be so lonely if you’d agree to go out on a date with me after this,” Sharky whines. Charity rolls her eyes at him and Earl nearly spills his coffee down his front when Jen, a raven-haired woman about Rook’s age walks over from where she’s been eavesdropping in the next closest guard tower.

                “Oh, for Christ’s sake, Charity,” the slim Hispanic woman says with a glance at Sharky. She grabs Charity by the face and kisses her passionately. Charity’s eyes go from surprised to blissful, and she bends into the kiss and deepens it, putting a hand behind Jen’s neck to draw her closer. Sharky’s jaw drops and he and Earl glance at each other. Jen pulls away from the kiss with a smirk, wiping her mouth. Rook’s face and the tips of her ears are very red before she turns away and walks off, hand in hand with Jen.

                “It’s not that she doesn’t want to date _you_ , Sharky,” Clem explains kindly, looking at Charity with amusement as she accompanies Jen back over to her guard tower looking lovestruck. Clem was one of the few people who knew the two had started dating just before all hell had broken loose in the county. Given the conservative nature of many of the county’s residents, Charity had always tried to fly mostly under the radar, especially after she got kicked out of her childhood church after being caught fingerbanging the pastor’s daughter in the choir loft when she was eighteen. “It’s that she doesn’t want to date…”

                “Yeah, no, I got it,” Sharky mutters, staring at the two in the guard tower. Charity is brushing a strand of black hair behind Jen’s ear, holding one of her hands and smiling at her brightly. Earl doesn’t know quite what he feels about what just happened, so he just stands there, bewildered, possibly more so than Sharky, who holds the butt of his shotgun in front of his crotch and swallows. “Anyway, I, uh, Im’ma go stock up on ammo,” Sharky blurts, and then disappears down the ladder with a grunt of effort.

                “Looks like you and I aren’t the only ones still trying for love,” Clementine comments, trying very hard not to laugh at the flabbergasted look still pasted across Earl’s face.

                “I mean…I knew. Nearly everyone in the county at least heard rumors after that mess with the church years ago, but…” He trails off, blushing.

                “It’s different when you see your kid kissing somebody for the first time?” she asks, laughter in her tone.

                “Rook has other things to focus on,” he maintains, reddening a little at her acknowledgement that he absolutely views Rook as his child.

                “Oh, and you don’t?” she teases, tugging on a strand of his hair. He narrows a look at her over the rim of his glasses.

                “I don’t have a problem with her…choice of person,” Earl says, feeling awkward talking about this, “I just don’t want to see her get hurt. She’s got a lot on her plate.”

                “And you’ve got a lot on yours. You and I both know a little rest and relaxation with someone you like can go a long way toward boosting morale. Let the kid live a little. She’s probably going to save us all, just give her time.” Earl stares at Clementine for a moment, his brows drawing together in concern. There’s no good way to ask the question, but he has to know.

                “Clementine…” he hesitates, one corner of his mouth drawn up a bit in a grimace, “You and Rook never….ah?”

                “Oh, ew, Jesus, Earl, no what kinda question is that?” she exclaims, whapping him hard on the shoulder with an open palm. “I took care of that kid all the way through her undergraduate career, made sure she studied, took her to the dining hall so she didn’t forget to eat before a big test. Hell, I’m only ten years older than her, but she might as well be my kid too.” Earl lets out a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding, relieved.

                “I still don’t think she ought to be getting distracted,” Earl growls under his breath finally. Clementine lets out an honest-to-god purr in his ear, biting it gently.

                “What do you say we go back to your room and you let me distract you for a while?” she suggests in a tone that immediately has his interest.

                “I fully accept how hypocritical this is,” he mutters to her, running fingers along the edge of her jaw, “but lead the way.”


	11. Wrath

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Earl tries to comfort his deputy after she looks John in the eyes when he dies and loses sleep over what she says to him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm trying to get to the point as quickly as possible while still covering the whole story. I promise I'm going somewhere with this.  
> \------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

                When Rook leaves the next day, bag stocked with ammo and additional guns, she gives Earl an awkward hug, the tops of her ears turning a little red at his surprised look. He feels bad if it hurt her feelings that he didn’t return the embrace, he’s just not used to showing affection to his employees, even this employee. He looks at her fondly though, and pats her shoulder gently, telling her to be careful. Clementine hugs her with feeling, telling her to be safe and admonishing her to take care of herself before handing her a jar of peanut butter. Tucking the gift in her backpack, Charity takes Jen’s hand and the two look at one another with adoration that worries Earl. Sharky follows along with them, looking entirely too pleased about it for Earl’s taste, but it’s not like there’s anything he can do about it, he supposes.

                “I’m sure she’ll be fine,” Clem tells him, squeezing his hand.

                “I sure as hell hope so, since I’m the one sending her out there.”

                Earl spends the next month worrying about Rook, demanding news from every new person who walks through the gates of the jail. He and Clementine organize the jail, arranging for hunters and fishermen to trade food, while others craft bullets and arrows and shelters and explosives, whatever they can find supplies for. No one has been able to get communications out of the valley. If they’re going to stop the cult, they’re going to have to do it with the resources and people they already have.

                Earl hears about Rook’s capture and subsequent escape from John, worried sick about her and her friends. Radio chatter one day has everyone excited. Apparently Rook had successfully killed John Seed. Earl feels his heart soar, thinking that if she can just take out the other two, they would have a fighting chance capturing and destroying Joseph Seed and his cult permanently. Earl’s happiness is tempered when a week later, Rook pushes through the gates, limping badly.

                Charity steps into the courtyard, face hollow, eyes haunted. She drags one of her legs painfully, refusing Sharky’s offered arm to steady her. She lies down on a cot and falls asleep, dead to the world.

\--

                Earl is sitting outside with Clementine half-perched on his lap, laughing with her and drinking coffee as she takes a bite of breakfast burrito before offering him some. They both sober when Rook limps outside into the sharp morning air, Sharky following her protectively, unusually grim. Clementine and Earl stand, both concerned, both approaching her with worry on their faces. Earl notices Rook’s left arm for the first time. In dark black ink, the skin around it still red and welted, is the word “WRATH.”

                “Rook,” he starts, but doesn’t know what else to say. Clementine takes over.

                “What happened to Jen?” Sharky shakes his head, looks down. “Fuck,” she whispers, putting a hand on Rook’s arm, but she flinches away violently. I’m so sorry, Charity,” Clem says softly.

                “Jen’s not dead,” she snaps, glaring at Sharky, who reddens. “She fucking broke up with me.” Her mouth twists in an ugly, bitter expression.

                “What?” Clem says, voice deepening in irritation both at Sharky and at the now-absent, but apparently still alive Jen.

                “She said this was all just a little too intense and broke up with me,” Rook says flatly. “Happened like two weeks ago.” She shrugs a little too nonchalantly and Earl can see the deep hurt in her eyes, belying her words.

                “Sharky, you fucking idiot,” Clem snaps at him.

                “What? All I did was shake my head, it’s not on me if you go makin’ all kinds of wild assumptions,” he objects. Charity lets out a weary sigh.

                “Where’s Hudson or Pratt? Did they make it? Were either of them there?” Whitehorse interrupts urgently, his heart in his throat.

                “Dep saved Hudson, got John’s key after killin’ him and blew his little shitpile to kingdom come. Last I heard, Hudson’s staying in Fall’s End,” Sharky tells him, looking over at Rook with a worried expression that looks odd on his usually carefree and friendly face. Rook is staring at her feet, face pale, eyes glazed.

                “Rook. Are you okay?” Earl asks. She peels her gaze from her feet and stares at him blankly. There are dark circles under her eyes. He sees her eyes watering, sees tears welling up. With sudden parental clarity, he realizes what she needs, realizes she’s exhausted and traumatized and hurting. He steps forward, pulls her into a tight hug and she dissolves into him, sobbing hard, her wails of pain and devastation breaking Earl’s heart. He wished he could do something else, anything else, something to ease her pain or to prevent it from happening in the first place. He feels his shirt getting wet with tears and probably snot, but he doesn’t care, just strokes Rook’s back gently, murmuring softly in her ear. “It’s okay, Rook. It’s okay. You did your best. It’s okay. It’s all going to be okay.” He doesn’t know if it’s true, but he sure as hell wants it to be. Before this mess, Rook had never shot a person, had never had to make the decision to end a human being’s life for the good of others. It’s a terrible, terrible weight, one that’s hard to live with.

                Clementine picks up a breakfast burrito and hands it to the beleaguered deputy once Rook has stopped crying, collected herself and tugged out of Earl’s embrace. Earl gives Clem an annoyed glance. That was _his_ breakfast burrito.

                “I don’t think I’m ever going to get the image of the light fading out of those blue eyes out of my head,” Rook admits softly around a mouthful of egg and tortilla, sniffling and wiping at her nose with her sleeve. “I thought it would feel good to kill him. Thought it’d feel right but…” She glances at Earl and then looks away, ashamed. “What I did wasn’t right. He was injured, on the ground in front of me. I grabbed him by his necklace, pulled him up and yanked that key off his neck. And then I looked him right in the eyes and waited for him to die. He spouted a bunch of nonsense, but, Sheriff…” She looks up at him, face haunted, “Not all of it sounded like nonsense.” Earl doesn’t know what to say, how to respond to her horror and guilt. He pats her on the arm, kicking himself mentally when his fingers land on that fresh, painful tattoo and she winces.

                “The important part is you saved Hudson. You saved all those people in that bunker.” Her wide green eyes stare into his, looking half-mad and she says,

                “But did I, though? What if Joseph is right?” Those words and her tortured expression echoing through his mind keeps him up late that night, tossing and turning with worry. _What if Joseph is right?_


	12. Want and Need

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> About a trout. Also Earl and Clementine discuss what they want, and what they need.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> More fluff. I can't help it, I sit down to write a thriller chapter and this nonsense comes out.

                The trout floats peacefully in the still shallows of the river for a moment, protected from the current by a granite outcropping. It stares with glassy golden grey eyes, operculum lifting rhythmically to pull fresh water over its gills. Its skin is olive green on its back fading into a bright pinkish red down its sides. Little brown-black spots speckle it lightly, allowing it to blend in almost perfectly with the clear water where shafts of sunlight stab down toward the gravel bottom of the river. It flicks its tail lightly, looking for movement. With a soft _plop_ that makes it settle closer to the granite, a wriggling red worm lands in the water. The fish can smell the worm, detecting the tasty morsel eagerly. Timidly at first, and then with more confidence, the trout propels itself toward the worm, watching simultaneously for predators. A shadow passes over the water and it panics, darts back to safety before coming back again. The worm moves and the fish pursues. It is hungry. It pecks the worm, darts back, pecks again and then grabs it. A sharp prick shocks it and it struggles against whatever is tugging on its mouth, flapping its tail madly. The pulling stops and it gasps for air with its gills, operculum working, mouth trying to dislodge the unpleasant attachment. The pulling starts up again and it struggles, leaping out of the water in true desperation.

                Again the pulling stops and it paddles away hard, gills fluttering before it is hauled back yet again. This repeats, cyclical, until it is tired, muscles exhausted, tail fluttering softly in the cool water as it tries, slowly, sluggishly, to retreat to the shallows next to the granite rock once more. It is pulled by its mouth again and leaps one more time, a last-ditch effort to escape before it is pulled inexorably toward the shore and out of the water.

                “What a beautiful fish,” Clementine comments as Earl prises the hook from its mouth. He holds it up proudly, surveying its rainbow coloration in the sunlight. “It’s almost a shame to eat it.” He looks over at her with a small smile, sees the wistful, slightly unhappy look on her face.

                “He’s a little small to keep,” Earl lies to her. The fish is easily fifteen pounds and would make for good eating, but there’s currently plenty of venison and canned goods at the jail. Clementine gives him a smile that takes his breath away. She knows he’s lying about the size, knows he’s offering to release the fish to make her happy and she loves him all the more for it. “Here,” he says, passing the fish to her. “He’s all yours.” Clementine takes the fish gently but firmly and sets it back into the water, supporting its belly as it takes a gasping breath of water before she releases it and it vanishes into the deeper part of the river.

                Earl casts his line again after re-baiting it and he puts his free hand on Clementine’s knee where she sits next to him.

                “What do you want out of life?” he asks her, feeling philosophical suddenly after releasing the trout, considering the nature of death and how quickly one decision could alter a living being’s life.

                “Hmm,” she hums softly, thinking. She turns to him, covers his hand with her own. “Just this. Just you,” she tells him and he feels like he swallowed the sun he feels so warm inside. “You?”

                “Well, now, I can’t top your answer, so that’s just not fair,” he tells her sheepishly with a little smirk.

                “Come on, try. What do _you_ want out of life?” He thinks for a moment, really considers the question.

                “Well. I guess mostly I want happiness for the people I care about. I want this nonsense with the Seeds done with. I want my deputies out of harm’s way. I want Rook safe and trained and happy in her career. I want her to find a woman she loves and who loves her as much as I love you.” He pauses for a long moment, just admiring Clementine. “I want to retire and go back to my trailer in the middle of nowhere, goddamn it. I want another dog. And I want you with me for the rest of my life,” he tells her, meeting her eyes, ignoring his fishing line.

                “Earl,” Clementine gasps.

                “No, now, wait I’m not done saying my piece,” he tells her and she bites her lower lip with a look of concern, but lets him continue. “I want you to live with me after this. Permanently, not just because of the cult. Oh goddamn it,” he says, realizing why she had interrupted and reeling in the line quickly, but it breaks with a snap and a splash of water. With a sigh, he sets the rod aside, looks back at her with deep affection. “I want to marry you,” he tells her, heart beating hard.

                “Earl,” she says, this time a little sadly, glancing at his ring. He looks down at it for a long, serious moment, thinks of his ex-wife, wonders if she’s okay. He thinks about all the long years he kept wearing this ring, a totem of his loneliness, a crutch to keep women away, to distance himself from the vulnerability of trying to love someone again. He touches it, turns it, spins it on his finger before prying it off with a little grunt of effort. He looks at it closely, sees the crisscrossed pattern on the gold and lets out a little chuckle before he tosses it hard as he can out into the water. “So,” she says finally, looking a little gob smacked at the sudden declaration and riddance of his ring, “are you asking me or telling me? ‘Cause those are two different things.”

                “If I get down on my knees, I might not be able to get up again,” he warns her, stalling for time. She smirks again.

                “I don’t know, you did alright last night,” she teases him with a salacious expression. He chuckles and takes her hand in his, his now-bare left ring finger slotting between her right ring and middle finger comfortably. It feels weird and there’s a stark white line on his finger where the ring used to be, but it feels right now too.

                “You don’t think it’s too soon to be asking?” Earl gives her an uncertain look, tugging at his mustache a little. She chuckles.

                “Beau, from what I can tell, it might be the end of the world. If we’re all going to hell in a handbasket, I’d rather be riding in yours,” she tells him frankly. He shrugs.

                “Well, alright then.” He stares out over the glittering water for a long, long time, thinking. He cannot quantify or categorize why he loves this woman, but then he thinks that if you can pinpoint why you love someone down to just a simple list of reasons, maybe you don’t really love them. Loving someone is not ticking off a checklist of qualifications. All he knows, and he knows it with a surety, the way he knows the sun rises in the east and that the sky is blue, is that he loves this woman, this smart, funny, talented, beautiful woman. He thinks, and he thinks and he can’t imagine living even a moment without her. She has become his best friend, his confidant, his informant, the one person he can show weakness in front of, the person who looks at him and sees not just the man that he is, but the man that he could be. And he knows that she’s making him into that man by putting all her love inside him and reminding him what it is to be vulnerable, and what it is to be strong. He loves her with his entire being, he realizes, and he doesn’t just want her, he needs her. With a little nervous shudder, he turns to her, his blue-green eyes meeting her soft brown ones. Earl takes her hand gently, sitting next to her, no big show, no getting down on one knee, no fancy ring, just him and her, the way it’s supposed to be.

                “Will you marry me, Clementine Williams?”

                “Well, of course I will, Earl Whitehorse” she tells him with no hesitation, like she’s given this serious thought long before it ever occurred to him to ask her. She leans over to kiss him from her flimsy folding chair, but she leans too far, goes off balance and splashes into the water, hauling him in after her. He splutters, coughs, tossing his hat to the bank to save the felt. He’s just happy he came down here in jeans and an undershirt instead of his uniform.

                “I am fairly certain,” he says, wiping water from his mustache, more than a little annoyed with her, “that was on purpose.”

                “Smart man,” she comments with a grin, splashing him in the face with the cold water. He retaliates, squirting water from two cupped hands until she’s squealing and begging for mercy while laughing. He shucks his jeans and tosses them to the shore and she strips down to just her underwear. This close to the jail they’re safe from cultists and can relax. They swim in the oxbow just behind the jail, playing like kids in the water. The cool river water is nice on his knees and her red hair is like a crimson cape over her shoulders where the water darkens and spreads it. Casual touches turn to something a little steamier until the two are panting into one another’s mouths as they tread water tangled in each other’s arms. Shivering when he climbs out of the water, Earl wrings water from his hair and puts his wet clothes back on unhappily. Clementine follows suit and they waddle back to the jail dripping water.

                Virgil has long since learned not to comment on Earl and Clementine’s interactions with one another, but he still looks disapproving as they squish and drip their way through the jail, leaving behind puddles from their clothing until they reach the showers. They shower quickly and dart to Earl’s office-slash-bedroom, Earl feeling a bit like a teenager as surprised residents raise eyebrows at the two of them. Clementine made him feel younger and more alive than he had felt in years, and the doses of adrenaline from fighting the cult helped too. Before they can get up to anything too exciting, there’s a loud bang on the door.

                “Virgil, I swear to Christ,” Earl threatens in a loud growl from where he’s lying atop a squirming Clementine.

                “It’s me, Sheriff,” comes Tracey’s voice. “We need you out here _now_ , Sharky just showed up at the gates. Faith has Rook.”


	13. Ignorance is Bliss

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rook saves Burke. Earl saves Rook.

                Earl cannot drive fast enough. Clementine clings to the handle over the glove compartment in the passenger’s seat, her teeth clattering together as Earl hits potholes and debris. Tracey swears nastily from the backseat when they nearly hit a pine tree, Earl swerving wildly. He drives like a man possessed, pulling up hard to the field just outside Faith’s bunker. It’s a nightmare for him, a reminder of what he’d experienced, but he steps forward boldly, bravely, weapon drawn. Charity is wandering sluggishly after Marshal Burke who has docked a canoe from the nearby river and walked them up a tall hill that ends in a cliff. Cautious, seeing the swarm of angels between him and his deputy, seeing the swirling fog of leaked Bliss gas, Earl keeps his weapon drawn, but only watches for now, careful, but ready to intervene. Tracey is beside him, armed with a shotgun. Clementine is still by the truck, cautious, waiting as backup.

                “Don’t trust the Bliss,” Earl calls to his deputy, “You need to get the marshal,” he urges her, sees how the man is headed toward the cliff’s edge where the cult has erected two fancy gates, a sadistic design to torment and kill their captors while making them think they were stepping through the pearly gates of heaven. Rook half turns, looking for the source of his voice. Her mouth is agape and she’s shuffling slowly, face blank. “Now’s the time! Don’t let the marshal get through those gates!” With gargantuan effort, the deputy shakes herself and slings one booted foot in front of the other, looking for all the world like a zombie with her arms outstretched in front of her as she trudges after the marshal, trying to reach him. “Get the marshal now, Rook, you need to save him!” he urges her, drawing a bead on an approaching angel’s forehead. He doesn’t want to shoot until Rook has caught the marshal, knows the sound will bring them all swarming on them. Finally, Rook catches up, knocks the marshal to his feet. Earl grabs the gasmask they had dug out of jail storage and secures it to his face. He lunges forward, shooting his way through angels, ignoring as much as he can the strikes they blow as he desperately runs to rescue Rook. He grabs her by the shoulders and drags her out of the mist, calling to Tracey for help as he goes to drag the marshal back as well. Tracey binds the struggling marshal with zip ties, swearing at him as he struggles.

                “This is a fucking bad idea, Earl,” she yells, blowing a hole in an angel with her pistol.

                “We’re not leaving him behind,” Whitehorse snaps, lifting Rook gently over his shoulder. His knees creak and his back complains with the effort, but she’s not heavy. She’s his deputy. She’s spent the better part of three months at this point rescuing the county. It’s time someone rescued her for once.

                Earl gently lays Rook in the backseat of the pickup, Clementine switching to the back and cradling her friend’s head in her lap. Rook gibbers wildly, eyes staring blankly upwards.

                “Are you proud of me, Dad? Dad, no, please no, please don’t leave me, Dad,” she cries, tears overflowing and running down her cheeks as Clementine holds her still.

                “It’s alright,” she whispers, “You’ll be okay.” She glances up to Earl who is shocked, frozen in place. He hadn’t heard Charity talk about her dad, his best friend, in years. “Earl!” Clementine yells, snapping him out of his reverie. Burke is struggling madly in the bed of the pickup, screaming,

                “I don’t want to go! I don’t want to go! Please, please let me stay! No, you don’t understand! None of you dumb fuckers understands!” Tracey gives Burke a swift kick in the temple from where she sits in the back, knocking him out cold.

                “Let’s go!” she orders, smacking the gunnel of the truck, and between the two women yelling at him, Earl finally gets the wherewithal to punch the accelerator.

\--

                They get both Rook and Burke inside, both mostly unconscious, though both murmur under their breath, talking to themselves in the drug-induced state. Tracey places a catheter in Rook’s arm, pumping the same cocktail of drugs she’d given Earl when he’d been in the same state, mixed with fluids to keep her hydrated. You can’t come cold turkey out of that much Bliss without frying your brain, Tracey had explained. They hadn’t been able to place a line in Burke yet, he was too dehydrated, his blood pressure too low still to hit a vein safely, and he had been thrashing periodically, twitching and grunting in his drug-induced state.

                Earl sat next to Rook, holding her hand a little timidly, worried she’s not going to wake up. Clementine watches from the doorway, ready to come in if she’s needed. Rook takes a gasping breath, eyes flickering over. Tracey comes over and adjusts her IV drip, gives her an injection.

                “You’re doing great,” Tracey tells her, holding her shoulder in the most gentle motion Earl has ever seen the woman make. Before Earl can relish the success of their mission, Burke begins yelling madly, thrashing violently on his cot. Earl tries to hold him down, but the man is suddenly freakishly strong and slams his head hard into Earl’s nose. He sees stars for a minute and shakes his head, dazed, nose throbbing.

                “Christ, Tracey, get that syringe over here!” he orders, still struggling against Burke. “Woah, calm down, calm down. Burke, look at me, look at me,” he soothes the man as Tracey approaches with a syringe.

                “No! No drugs, no!” Burke screams, throwing out an arm to stop Tracey. He kicks her backwards hard into a chair.

                “Burke! For Christ’s sake! Stop it! Easy!” Earl says urgently, like trying to calm a panicking horse while trapped in the stall with it, all kicking legs and ferocious punches. Burke shoves him back hard, and he staggers backwards, keeping his feet and drawing his weapon as the man stands, violent and wild like a rabid animal. “Okay, okay,” Earl soothes, but he keeps his gun up as he watches Burke pant, wide-eyed. “It’s just to take the edge off,” he tells him as Tracey tries approaching again with a syringe of the medication.

                “No! No drugs! Put…put your guns down,” Burke asks, beginning to sound reasonable now.

                “You just can’t come out of the Bliss clean,” Virgil pleads, hiding behind his clipboard in the corner.

                “I…I can. I can. Sheriff,” he meets Earl’s eyes, a little of the madness fading from them. “Please.”

                “Alright,” Earl says softly, lowering his gun. “Alright.”

                “I’m not…I’m not scrambled,” Burke insists. Earl holds out a hand placatingly. “Stay away from me,” Burke demands softly.

                “Alright, alright,” Earl says over and over, holstering his gun calmly. “Alright, just, just lay down.” Burke complies, collapsing back onto the cot limply. “Stand down,” he tells Clementine, seeing her holding a shotgun leveled at Burke.

                “You shouldn’t have brought him here,” Tracey snaps, rubbing her back angrily.

                “Tracey…”

                “Fuck you!” she tells him in no uncertain terms. She strides toward him, her dark face furious. He watches Burke instead of looking at her directly, knowing how she can get when she’s mad. She’d punched him in the mouth and bitten him one of the times he had arrested her on drug charges, years ago. “I said this was a bad idea. I said it from the very beginning. You don’t _know_ her. How she digs inside your head…” He snaps his head around to stare at her, lip curling. Tracey realizes her error and looks away, refusing to meet his eyes. Finally, she takes a breath, throws both hands up. “Just…don’t trust him,” she warns, storming off.

                “I’ll…uh…I’ll go talk to her,” Virgil says, touching Earl’s arm.

                “Yeah,” Earl murmurs, forcing his temper to calm.

                “I don’t know why you tolerate that woman,” Clementine says. Earl is staring blankly at the marshal, shaking a little bit at his memories of the bliss. The odd flickering between field and prison cell, between freedom and captivity. The confusing mist of Bliss. The burning of his nose and throat. The feeling of an unwanted hand roaming over his body. The suggestion that he just end it all. He shudders. “I’m gonna punch her in the face. Want me to punch her in the face?” she asks him, face red with anger at Tracey. “Or maybe the throat. Yep, I’m gonna punch Tracey in the throat.”

                “Just, stop,” he says softly, collecting himself. He looks over at Rook, is horrified to find that her eyes are open, that she was conscious as they spoke.

                “What…what did Faith do to you?” she slurs, sitting up gingerly. Before he can answer, she grabs her forehead painfully, wincing. “What did she do to me?” Earl puts a gentle, fatherly hand on Rook’s head, brushing her hair out of her face. In answer to both questions, he simply says,

                “Enough, Rook. She did enough.”


	14. A Damn Good Deputy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mostly dialogue chapter. Foreshadowing and Fluff. Dat's it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Remind me again why we don't get to see Earl without those sunglasses more often? Including my cleaned up screenshot purely for the hell of it.

 

                “Clementine tells me congratulations are in order, Sheriff,” Rook comments, handing him a beer and taking a long, gulping draw from her own.

                “I think we should celebrate after all of this is over,” he tells her firmly, looking a little worried. “I want this peaceful little valley back to how it used to be before that goddamn Seed family moved in here. Then I can focus on celebrating.”

                “So what exactly are your intentions for my friend, Sheriff?” Rook asks him, a merry twinkle of mischief in her eye. He gives her his best stern sheriff look, but his lips melt into a smile beneath his handlebar mustache.

                “To make her happy, Rook. That’s all.”

                “Good enough,” she says with a small smile before she takes another swig of beer.

                “Are you on-duty, officer?” he teases her. She looks at him with amused surprise.

                “Aren’t you?”

                “Well, I haven’t gotten a paycheck in a while, so I figure I’ll go in when I feel like it,” he jokes. Her amusement and happiness are suddenly gone, vanished like a snowflake falling into hot coals.

                “Something has to be going on outside the county,” Rook says grimly. “Someone should have come by now. Even with all the jammers the cult has installed, someone should have noticed complete radio silence from an entire county.”

                “You do realize we live in Montana?” he asks her dryly. “Radio silence is kind of our thing.”

                “Anyway,” Rook says, cutting him off and perking up again, “Aside from telling me you asked her to marry you, she also mentioned to me that you wanted another dog.”

                “Eventually,” he says, cautious, frowning.

                “Oh, well, in that case I guess I’ll just keep Boomer for myself then.”

                “What?!” he says, surprised. “He’s alive?”

                “Sure is. Hurk’s dropping him off later this afternoon.” Rook grins up at him. “We all deserve some happiness in the middle of this shit storm. Figured having a dog around again would help.”

                “Well, goddamn, Rook. You’re a good kid, you know,” he tells her.

                “You mean a good deputy?”

                “A damn good deputy,” he agrees, with feeling. “Now you get back out there and keep being a hero. That’s an order.” She smiles a bit, nods, cuffing him gently on the shoulder as she walks off.

\--

                “Good dog, Boomer,” Whitehorse tells him. “Stay!” The gray-blue heeler wags his tail happy, tongue lolling out. “Now hang on, Rogers, we’ve almost got everyone. Grace, no one’s got cooties, scoot in a bit closer, dammit.”

                “Sharky, you touch my ass again, I’ll break your hand,” the grim archer named Jess tells him. He goes a little pale and moves away from her.

                “You sure you’ve got a handle on that bear?” Earl says skeptically.

                “It’s not Cheeseburger you need to worry about, Sheriff,” Clementine says dryly, eyeing Hurk’s rocket launcher with trepidation. Peaches the cougar yowls angrily, swatting at the bear, who grunts and settles back on his haunches as Clementine scratches behind his ear.

                “I didn’t know you intended to start a zoo as a side career, Rook,” Earl says, sizing up the two large predatory animals.

                “You should’ve seen the wolf I had to talk her out of keeping,” Jess mumbles.

                “Hurk, stop putting bunny ears on Nick, goddammit,” Earl growls, feeling thoroughly harangued.

                “Alright. Tracey, move a bit to your left. Perfect. Come here, Rook,” he says, stepping into the group and standing next to her. Clementine stands between him and Cheeseburger. Peaches has stalked off somewhere, furious at too much human interaction. “Now or never, Rogers,” Earl says with a broad smile, and there’s a flash and a click and the whole group dissolves, some of them gathering around Rogers to see the picture that was taken.

                “I’ll get this printed out as soon as possible, people,” Rogers says, trying to escape the crowd with his camera intact.

                “That picture gonna go in the paper?” Clementine asks Earl fondly as they walk back inside the gates. They had all agreed that a picture of everyone would be good for morale. Rook and her friends had freed a huge chunk of the residents of Hope County, had actually managed to get the Holland and Henbane Valley mostly under control, and was now pestering Jacob in the Whitetail Mountains.

                “Is it bad to say I want a picture before anything really bad happens?” Earl asks Clem, worry in his tone.

                “That’s a little grim, don’t you think? Things are looking up. I think we’re really gonna pull this off. We’ve got a great little base here, and the raids I’ve been doing have all but stopped the kidnappings in the area. Gotta be pissing Faith off something awful, though.”

                “Oh, I bet,” he says darkly, putting a hand gently around her waist.

                The two make their way up to western guard tower, watching as Rook and her friends trickle out of the gates, two of them going with her, the others returning to the areas where they patrol. Nick taxies his plane down the road until he can get enough speed to liftoff and is gone with the purr of an engine in his bright yellow plane.

                “You alright over there?” Clem asks Earl.

                “Just waiting for the other shoe to drop, is all. We’ve got the marshal, Rook’s been doing great work, she’s nearly got the Henbane River under control. I guess I’m just getting used to expecting something bad to happen when everything’s going right.”

                “Oh, come on, lighten up,” she tells him, rubbing his back affectionately. “It’s not like they’re going to kick down the doors and take us.”

                “I wouldn’t put anything past Faith,” he tells her frankly, but he smiles a little tight smile and changes the subject. Does no good to dwell on what might happen, he thinks.


	15. Amazing Grace

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Someone has opened the gates. Virgil is dead and the Faith is coming for Earl.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *TRIGGER WARNING* Strong reference to suicide and death

                Earl is awoken abruptly by the sound of a gun shot. He darts out of bed, Clementine close behind him. They are fully clothed, had fallen asleep talking and not bothered to undress and though his clothes are rumpled, he’s grateful for it. He grabs his belt, draws his sidearm, stepping into the infirmary and sweeping it for threats. Satisfied that it’s empty, he paces down the hallway, Clementine following with her rifle in hand. To Earl’s horror, he finds Virgil slumped in the offices off the main lobby, dead. Breathing hard, he darts toward the control room, hearing screaming and gunshots. He looks in the door just in time to see Marshal Burke put a bullet in his brain. Blood and brains splatter the wall behind him and he slumps. Earl feels his stomach drop as alarms go off. The gates are open and cultists are streaming in.

                “Stay behind me,” he orders Clementine, sweeping the hall for threats. Cultists are spread out, grabbing people, shooting some of his friends. Jaw clenched, he peaks again into the control room door, but is spotted by a group of cultists. “Run!” he tells Clem, and they dart back toward where they came. His heart is thundering madly in his chest. He smells gardenia and vanilla, knows he doesn’t have much time. “The Peggies have the control room,” he hollers into his radio. “Rook! Anyone! We’re under atta– No!”

                Earl sees Clem drop, sees her grabbing for her shoulder, a pained expression on her face. He tries to reach for her, but someone grabs him from behind, slamming him bodily into the concrete wall so hard he sees stars in his vision. “Hold them back,” he yells to Tracey and the others who are fighting down the hall, his finger still keyed on the mic. “We’re under attack,” he hollers into the radio before he clips it back to his belt. Someone hits him across the shoulders with a bat and he lets out a hard huff of air, staggering. His hat drops off his head as he spins, punching his attacker hard in the jaw. He turns again, lungs taking in deep racking breaths of air that are contaminated with Bliss. Faith stands in front of him suddenly, giggling.

                “Did you miss me?” she whispers.

                “No, no please,” he begs. She holds a hand down to draw his attention to Clem on the floor. Her eyes are blank. Thick, black-red blood oozes from the hole in her chest. There’s blood and saliva dribbling from the corner of her full lips. “No, no, please!” he begs, pulling Clementine to him, sobbing now. “Don’t take her from me.” His mind fogged with grief, but knowing he has to protect the others, he steps away from her, backing into a corner as cultists surround him on all sides. He shoots until he is out of bullets and still they come for him, grabbing him roughly, tearing at his clothes, gripping his arms tightly.

                “You can join her…” Faith whispers, and vanishes. Someone grabs him by the hair and yanks his head hard to the side, exposing his neck. Earl feels a sharp stab between his ear and his shoulder and his world goes hazy. He slumps forward over Clementine’s body, fighting for consciousness. This can’t be happening. He can’t lose her. He can’t.

\--

                Bliss. Utter, unadulterated bliss. Everything is fine. Everyone is okay. Earl walks arm in arm with Faith, happy that they were able to reconcile their differences. She’s singing “Amazing Grace” and he sings along with her. He’d always loved this song. Hadn’t he? He plucks a flower, bringing it to his nose and sniffing deeply. Gardenia and vanilla. He’d always liked the smell of vanilla. Vanilla with strawberry. He smiles at Faith, singing under his breath, so happy he could burst. She walks him to his cell, lets him step inside. Closes the door.

                And then the bliss leaves him. On the floor is Clementine’s body, pale, so much more pale than she was in life now that she has bled out, her freckles bleached away, her brown eyes a dull tan. He cries out, agonized, reaches down to touch her and she vanishes in his arms. Shaking himself, he turns, staggers to the bars of the cell. His eyes are burning, foggy. A familiar song is piping through his mind, eerie and cloying. With no other alternative seeming rational, he starts to sing it, the words hurting him as they come out.

                “Amazing…grace…how sweet….the sound….” Time distorts and he blurs the words together, starts again, closes his eyes as he clings to the bars of the door. There is no hope. There is no escape. There is only death and the means to achieve it. He looks over at the noose that’s still hanging there, considering it. “We’ve no less days, to sing his praise, than when we’ve first begun…”

                There are two parts of Earl now. There is the calm, rational Earl who knows that he has to survive to get revenge, has to survive to help Rook, has to survive to carry on Clementine’s legacy. And then there’s the Earl that has given up, that just wants to join her, wants to die with her. Wants this all to be over with. It’s the Earl that’s tired, so unendingly tired, that just wants to sleep, keeps thinking about that _noose_. How _easy_ it would be. The rational Earl knows he needs to escape, knows the Bliss created the other Earl, the one that wants to die. The one that wants to die is just too strong, too ready to face oblivion.

                Earl’s eyes open lazily as the Bliss flows through him, mingled salvation and destruction in one. He recognizes Rook’s face, sees the worry there, the terror. He swallows, breathes hard, forces himself to focus.

                “I don’t have much time, Rook…the Bliss…you have to stop it.” He frowns, mind coming back to him more as she puts a gentle hand on top of his, gripping his fingers tightly. “You have to hurry!” he urges her, desperation in his tone, but it’s still an order. Just like that, he’s lost it again, that weak pusillanimous side of him taking over, whispering in his mind to just let go. “Amazing grace,” he sings again to himself, “How sweet the sound…” He turns to look at the noose and at the moment it’s the most beautiful thing he’s ever seen that wasn’t Clementine. Clementine. She’s gone. She’s dead. He grabs the chair, the same one he’d been tied to before. “That saved a wretch like me,” his baritone voice reverberates through the Bliss-soaked air comfortingly. “I once was lost, but now I’m found,” he climbs up onto the chair, “was blind, but now I see.” He hears Rook screaming but can’t understand her, can’t focus on anything but that noose, the ending it will give him. The peace.

                The part of Earl that is still trying to fight this looks at Rook through the loop of the noose, sees her desperate face, a tear falling from her eye as she watches him, scrabbling at the door.

                “You have to hurry, Rook,” he pleads and she stops trying to open the door. “Go, Rook. Shut it all down.” Rook says something Earl can’t hear and is gone. Even if he can’t fight this, even if he can’t win, she has to stop it from happening to anyone else. She vanishes up the stairs after a final pained look at him.

                “You should join me, Earl. Just let go. It’s not hard. It won’t even hurt,” Clementine says to him.

                “You’re not here,” he whispers. She floats into the air so she’s at eye-level with him.

                “I am here,” she assures him, lifting the noose and putting it around his neck, tightening it for him. “Join me.”

                “No. No, the real you wouldn’t want me to give up, Clem,” he tells her softly, touching her immaterial cheek.

                “It would be so easy, Earl. Death is so peaceful. So blissful.”

                “No,” he shakes his head, struggling against the urge to kick the chair away, to let oblivion take him.

                Earl hears a shuddering boom and the bunker shakes. For a brief moment, he is entirely himself again, and he watches as the green gas fades from the room. Shaking his head, he feels the rough rope around his neck. Clementine has vanished. He pulls the rope off, steps down, realizes he’s still wearing a radio. He unclips it and speaks into it.

                “That’s done it, Rook,” he tells her, staggering a bit as he steps down off the chair heavily. “I’m sorry, partner, but I need to get outta here. I can’t see straight from this bliss. It’s all on you. Blow this place into oblivion.” He tests the door, finds it unlocked. He’s not surprised. You don’t have to lock the doors when your prisoners are locked in their own minds. He stumbles down the stairs, opening doors and tugging people out. He hears another crash and the remaining oozes of Bliss cease and dissipate. Pleased, he picks up his radio again with a small smile. All else aside, he is so very, very proud of Rook right now. “That did it, Rook. The air is clearin’ up. Feel like I can finally think straight. We gotta get the hell outta here, whole place sounds like it’s about to blow. I’ll round up any survivors and meet you outside. Good luck.”

                With that, he does exactly what he says, pulling survivors out into fresh air before darting back in to find more. Rook comes tearing out after him after a few long minutes.

                “Run!” she calls and they do, getting as far from the bunker on foot as they can. With a final, deafening _BOOM!!!!_ bright flame belches out of every orifice of the bunker, collapsing it in on itself. They stand for a moment, panting, Rook’s hands on her knees as she gasps for air. Unable to wait any longer, Earl picks up his radio again.

                “Tracey?” he calls.

                “Sheriff, oh Christ, you’re alright, thank god. Clementine’s been worried sick.” Warm relief floods through him, and he goes down, sinking onto his backside in the wet grass, face in his hands, light-headed, warm tears seeping down his face before he composes himself.

                “Tracey, everything’s okay here,” Rook says over the radio for him, patting Earl’s shoulder. “We’re headed back now.” She pulls his blue pickup around, smiling when he mutters about her getting dents in it and holds the door open for him. He wants to object, but he’s really just bone-tired. “Here,” she says, handing him his hat back. “You don’t look quite right without it,” she tells him. He chuckles, but sets it gently on the dashboard, taking a deep, calming breath. They drive in silence, Rook content to just let him think and recover from the shock of the day. They pull up to the front of the jail and Tracey comes out to meet them.

                “You look like hell,” she tells him. He hums.

                “Yeah? Well, I feel like it, too,” he admits.

                “Need help getting back inside?” Tracey asks, no sarcasm in her tone.

                “Hell no,” he gripes. “I’ll manage.”

                “I didn’t think you could pull this off,” Tracey addresses Rook. “You saved a lot of people here today, Rook. Don’t forget that.” Earl nods in agreement, trying to keep his emotions from his face, feels shame now, realizing how Rook saw him. Someone calls for Tracey’s help and she walks off. Earl sits silently for a long moment just feeling the breeze on his face from the open truck window.

                “You know, there was a moment, just before you arrived…” he starts, not looking at his junior deputy, just looking straight out the windshield so he doesn’t have to meet her eyes when he admits this. “I’d just lost all hope. I- I couldn’t see a way out.” He turns to her now, looks deeply into her concerned green eyes. “But you led the way. And a lot of good people died, but everyone here, all of us,” he says, looking around, “we’re alive because of you,” he tells her, gaze intense. He feels tears gathering, feels a hard lump in his throat. “And I’m _damn proud of you_ ,” he says fiercely, his voice shaking with emotion. He collects himself almost as quickly as he lost it, and slams his hand on the door frame. “Now I want you to find that goddamned Joseph Seed, bring him to justice, or put him in the ground,” he demands, voice raising almost to a yell. He reaches awkwardly for the door handle and hops out of the truck with a groan, back aching. He closes the door and reaches through the open window to grab his hat as an afterthought. “That’s an order, Deputy,” he says softly, settling his hat on his head and limping away toward the jail. Toward Clementine.


	16. Unwilling, Unqualified, Unfortunate, Ungrateful

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Earl and Clem reunite. Rook admits something to Earl.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lighter inscriptions referenced are all real Zippos recovered from the bodies of Vietnam soldiers. If you haven't played the Vietnam DLC, I highly recommend it. It will give you new appreciation for Wendell Redler.  
> \--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

                When he reaches Clementine, Earl feels nauseated, his head still swimming from the bliss, and from the overwhelming realization that Clem is still alive. She’s bandaged thoroughly, left arm in a sling, looking a little pale where she’s lying in their bed.

                “Don’t look so serious, beau, it was just a through and through. Didn’t need to run off before the party started, though,” she teases him as she sits up, wincing a little.

                “I thought I saw you get hit in the chest,” he mumbles, stroking her right arm gently. She chuckles.

                “Well, I know these are pretty big targets, but nope, they got me right in the big muscle at my arm joint. Bullet went straight through. In a couple of weeks, I’ll be good as new.”

                “And can you, ah…” he trails off, a little embarrassed. The fact that he’s still alive evidently has his testosterone levels high, his subconscious wanting to celebrate continued existence with almost desperate need.

                “Move my arm? Sure.”

                “That’s…that’s not what I was asking…” he tells her shamefacedly, but she laughs, music to his ears.

                “I know, you big dope. I’ll be fine. You just have to be gentle with me.”

                “That I can do,” he purrs, stroking her cheek. She sobers and holds his hand, stroking the bare ring finger.

                “Do you want to talk about it?” He knows what she means.

                “No.”

                “Okay. Little help?” He helps her unbutton her top and she kicks off her pants. He remembers the first night they had spent together, the night they had met, remembers his embarrassment, his uncertainty. Now he touches her with surety, knowing she wants him, knowing she loves him, but it still takes his breath away a little. He lies back and lifts her onto him gently. She sinks down with a little satisfied noise and he groans at the sensation of warmth and friction against his flesh. He runs fingers over the pinkish-white scarred word “DEATH” across her chest. She might be labelled “death,” but to him, she is life. She is everything. She rides him enthusiastically, wincing a little when she bumps her shoulder, but the two collide explosively together, like an atom bomb, pure energy, groaning into one another’s mouths through hot kisses and gentle touches. When, at last they come together, Clem whispers in his ear,

                “I love you,” and it feels like all is right with the world again.

\--

                Rook is playing with a lighter she’d found somewhere, flipping it open and closed, open and closed, open and closed, open and closed, open and closed until the _clickity-clackity click, clackity-clickity clack_ of the movement is driving Earl nuts. Earl snatches it from her fingers gently, and she glances up at him. He gives her a look somewhere between irritation and concern.

                “Sorry,” she mutters. He looks down at the tarnished metal lighter, reads the inscription with a little huff of bitter laughter.

                “WE THE UNWILLING LED BY THE UNQUALIFIED TO KILL THE UNFORTUNATE DIE FOR THE UNGRATEFUL.”

                “I’ve found a few of them. Looking for them for Wendell Redler. The lighters all have a number on the bottom that open a weapons cache. Most of them also have a side inscription too, though.” She fishes in her pockets for a minute, pulls out a few more to show him.

                Earl takes one, trading her for the first one.

                “YEA THOUGH I WALK THROUGH THE VALLEY OF THE SHADOW OF DEATH I FEAR NO EVIL FOR I’M THE EVILEST SON OF A BITCH IN THE VALLEY.” He chuckles, looks at the next on she hands him.

                “YOU HAVE NEVER LIVED TILL YOU’VE ALMOST DIED FOR THOSE WHO FIGHT FOR IT LIFE HAS A FLAVOR THE PROTECTED WILL NEVER KNOW.” Earl forces himself to give an entirely straight face when he hands the next one back to her pinched gingerly between his index finger and thumb like something filthy:

                “IF YOU WANT TO FUCK SMILE WHEN YOU GIVE THIS LIGHTER BACK.” Rook chuckles at his uncomfortable expression.

                “Sharky keeps trying to get me to give that one to every woman we encounter,” she tells him with a roll of her eyes.

                “A SUCKING CHEST WOUND IS NATURE’S WAY OF TELLING YOU THAT YOU’VE BEEN AMBUSHED,” another lighter declares. He hands them back with a small chuckle after lighting a cigarette with one of them.

                “How are you doing, kid?” he asks her affectionately. Rook gives a sad smile.

                “I’ll be glad when this is all over. I want a shower and a nap.”

                “You could have that now,” he reasons.

                “Hmm,” she hums an unhappy sound, “but the nightmares…” Rook shakes her head, looking haunted. “I really hope our health insurance covers therapy.” Earl huffs a laugh.

                “We can dream,” he replies, staring out at the afternoon sky, lazy clouds wandering sluggishly across the horizon. Rook sights movement in the woods through her scope, sees it’s just an elk, settles.

                “Faith didn’t die easy,” Rook says finally, voice shaking. Earl is quiet, just listens. “I know she…I know she did something to you, that first time. I know you don’t want to talk about it, it’s just…” she sighs, searching for words, looks over at him shyly. “You’re like my dad, you know? You and him,” she shakes her head and her eyebrows raise suddenly. “I don’t actually know which of you taught me how to drive. Both of you were always in the car with me.”

                “It was a harrowing experience,” he assures her with a chuckle, “I was mostly there for moral support. For him.”

                “I still can’t believe it’s been ten years. I never got a chance to say a proper goodbye to him. I thought it was the worst moment of my life. I thought nothing could top hearing that news, hearing that my dad was dead. Somehow…somehow seeing you in that cell, refusing to listen, unable to hear me, standing on that chair…” her face goes very pale and she swallows hard. “When Dad died, I just…broke. And you were there for me. You encouraged me to go to college. Wrote me that letter of recommendation. You pushed me to do better, be better. Mom never did get over it. I think it’s what killed her. She gave up, stopped wanting to live. The pneumonia, it was bad but…” Her voice trails off. After a moment Rook turns to him, her emerald green eyes intense. “But you were there. You’ve always been there for me, always believed in me. So when I figured out she’d tortured you, I wanted to _kill her with my bare hands_ ,” Rook tells him, fury in her voice unlike anything he’s ever heard from her before. “I didn’t kill her for justice or because I had no choice or because it was the right thing to do. I killed her because she hurt my family. And I enjoyed it. What does that make me?”

                “It makes you human, Rook,” Earl tells her. Rook is silent, staring out at the valley, breath coming a little ragged.

                “I’m so tired, Sheriff,” she breathes and he can tell she is utterly exhausted.

                “Go get some rest, kid. The world can wait.”


	17. Coffee and Contemplation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A little bit of filler with some main plot setup. Earl writes poetry. Rook's ex shows up. Also coffee, because it is proof that the universe loves us and wants us to be happy.  
> \-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

                Clear water pours into the ancient appliance, slurping down into the reservoir sluggishly. Grainy brown granules settle in a tall heap on the paper-thin filter, stale, but still usable. Calloused hands press a button. The water burbles and bubbles, heating and crawling up the tube, sloppily spitting and dropping onto the grounds and slowly filtering through before creeping down the spout and into the carafe, the whole business making a lot of burping trickling noises like a babbling brook. Warm, rich scent rises from the pot and Earl takes a deep breath, pouring the dark black coffee into two mugs. He steps down the hallway and into the office off the side of the infirmary quietly.

                Sitting slowly on the bed, he sets his mug on the desk next to it and touches his sleeping fiancé – his heart flutters a little at that word – on her hip. She takes a long, deep breath, blinking owlishly before sitting up and stretching her arms above her head. He relishes how her body looks in the soft light of the room, wearing only a white t-shirt and cotton panties and contemplates how he got this lucky.

                “Good morning,” he says softly, offering the mug of coffee.

                “Oh,” she exclaims, a happy little noise. She looks at him over the steaming mug. “Have I mentioned lately how much I love you?”

                “Always nice to hear it,” he smiles. Clementine gazes at him with adoration for a long moment and takes a sip of her coffee, looking down demurely. He takes a sip of his as well, his blonde-brown mustache wet with coffee when he pulls away. Clementine uses a thumb to wipe the coffee away, grinning at him.

                Clementine thinks back to all the loves she’s ever had, or at least all the people she’s ever dated. She dated a boy in high school, but it was never meant to be. After her parents died, she’d been a loner, working on a deer farm to save money for school. She had started college a few years after she was initially supposed to, and by the time she was there, most of the students were younger than her, wide-eyed, bushy-tailed eighteen-year-olds without a clue. She spent much of her time hanging out with graduate students she had met on the deer farm and tried dating one, but it hadn’t panned out.

                Truth be told, even before her parents had died, Clementine had been a loner, a wallflower at the edges of the room, happy to hang out with friends, but never quite finding what she was looking for in any of the men she dated. She had plenty of guys pursue her, and she gave plenty of them chances, but usually her independent streak ran them off. She wanted someone who would sit with her in an open field of wildflowers and say nothing, just exist. That kind of quiet confidence was hard to come by.

                After graduation, Clementine decided to pursue a Master’s degree working with charismatic megafauna native to North America. Grad school left her very little time or motivation to date, and once she started working at zoos, she had gone home most nights tired and smelly, wanting nothing more than a shower, a soft bed and a good movie to fall asleep to.

                Every man Clem tried to date seriously wanted to “settle down” and “start a family,” which in this area of the world meant “quit your job” and “get back in the kitchen” and “have my children.” Nah, she was not about that life. In her opinion, the principle business of life is to enjoy it, and for her, enjoying it meant backpacking and hiking and camping and fishing and hunting and spending every possible instant of her time outside.

                While Clementine wanted a family, wanted a companion, she just hadn’t found the right guy. She felt that a family could be just two people, an opinion most men she met did not share. An only child, she’d never really seen the appeal of making more human beings. The one guy she’d dated for longer than a couple of years had changed his mind, decided he wanted kids and tried to push her into it, made it an ultimatum and threatened to leave her if she didn’t change her mind. So she let him leave. Through eyes fogged with bitter tears, she had watched him peel out of the driveway in his truck and never spoke to him again. It had taken her years to get over the loss. Hurt and lonely, she gave up finding Mr. Right entirely and just had fun. She had fun in every way, shape and form, expanding her horizons and trying new things, sometimes causing drama while doing so, she thinks, remembering Adelaide Drubman and the shitshow that had been with a wry smile.

                When Clementine had moved to Hope County to work at the F.A.N.G. Center, she hadn’t expected to find the love of her life. She just wanted to work with wolves, cougars, wolverines and bears, men didn’t come into her motivation to be here. It was an added perk that one of her friends from college lived nearby, but still, she thinks, looking lovingly at Earl, what were the chances that she ended up falling in love with an older man who was only ever supposed to be a one-night stand?

                The two of them step out into the cool morning air and sit on folding chairs. Clementine surveys the sheriff as he sips his coffee, reading through a local fishing guide with his complete attention on the information. It’s one of the things she loves about him. The way he focuses on a subject, studies it almost obsessively until he knows everything there is to know about it. Most of the records for fishing in Hope County were held by the man sitting in front of her. She looks at that well-groomed handlebar mustache, his kind, startlingly blue-green eyes, his deep chest, his sturdy frame. Who gives a rat’s ass about a young man with a six pack? she thinks, reminiscing how this man can toss her around in the sack, those broad shoulders holding her up, those strong hands touching her so gently, so artfully like they were made for it. With a smirk she considers what she knows he’s got hanging between his legs and thinks that must have been made for her too, because god almighty he knew what to do with it – the perk of an experienced older man. She twirls a strand of ruby red hair absentmindedly around her finger, taking a sip of her coffee as she undresses him with her eyes.

                Earl glances up and looks a little bewildered at the expression on her face. That was the other thing Clementine loved about him, that unabashed but unarrogant way he carried himself, confident in his abilities as a cop and as a man, but never presumptuous, never prideful. She kind of adored the way he looked at her when she appreciated him, like she is Eve in his garden and he’s unaware they were made for one another by God Himself. He is humble, and gentle and smart, much smarter than you might expect if all you knew about him was that he is a bull riding cop that managed to get himself elected sheriff. He enjoyed writing poetry, for Christ’s sake, a fact she only knew about him because she’d found his notebook on the bookcase when she was dusting. Bored and looking for something to do when she was living in his trailer, the notebook had caught her eye. It was squeezed haphazardly between _Heart of Darkness_ and _Cold Mountain_. She had flipped through it, not knowing its significance at first and found beautiful sonnets and haikus written in scrawled cursive. Earl had seemed deeply embarrassed, and a little angry when he’d walked in and found her curled up in his La-Z-Boy reading through them. It had taken her a month to persuade him to return the journal so she could read the rest.

                With a sweet little smile, Clem remembers one of her favorites:

“Fire flickers wildly

Atop her porcelain head

An untamed crown of flame.”

                Earl was annoyed with it, because, as he had told her, “it breaks the five-seven-five syllable rule of haiku with its last line, goddamn it.” It had taken all her considerable self-control not to giggle at his indignant impatience with himself, still surprised at his hobby. He’d written another that she couldn’t help but cackle at when he showed her, a wry grin beneath his bushy mustache.

“Behold! The bright dome

Where once were golden locks bright

Alas, lost to time.”

                Clementine had patted the bald front of his head and laughed, telling him she didn’t mind, and it was true. Love is not built on appearance alone.

                Holding her mug with one hand, Clementine puts her other hand on Earl’s knee, enjoying the peaceful coolness of the early morning as the sun rises over the valley, pulling away the blanket of darkness and throwing the trees in stark contrasting oranges and pinks amidst their blue-greens. She glances over at this unlikely lover and her chest glows warm. If nothing else, she’s glad all the considerable mess the cult had made had put them together. She just hoped it didn’t also tear them apart.

                Frowning, Clementine hears sudden music coming from outside the gates and hears someone yelling.

                “Oh fuck, is it another cult truck?” she asks, setting her coffee down and climbing up the ladder behind Earl to investigate. There’s a murmur of other folks wondering about the noise and as Clementine glances over the top of the wall she groans in annoyance.

                Jen is standing just outside the gates holding a boombox over her head blaring “Truly Deeply Madly.”

                “Is Rook here?” she yells over the music. As if on cue, Rook appears from the guard tower, face furious.

                “What the fuck are you doing here, Jen? You broke up with me, you can’t just change your mind, which is the same fucking thing I told you when you showed up at the Wolf Den last week. Go away!”

                “I’m sorry! I was wrong.”

                “Yes! You were! Now go away!” Rook hollers.

                “Just give me another chance, please!” Jen begs. Clementine rolls her eyes so hard she’s concerned she might have strained something.

                “If you don’t get the hell out of here with that goddamn boombox, I’m gonna shoot it out of your hands myself,” Earl threatens, angry on behalf of Rook, and also concerned about it attracting stray Angels. The last thing they needed this morning was to contend with Bliss-fueled zombies.

                “But–” The boombox explodes in a shower of plastic and components and flame. Everyone looks over at Sharky, whose shotgun is smoking. He shrugs.

                “What? Everybody was talking, I took action. Don’t hate.” Jen has staggered backward, looking affronted and also a bit frightened.

                “Get. The. Fuck. Out. Of. Here. Jen,” Rook snaps each word like a curse. Jen’s shoulders drop and she turns to walk back to her four-wheeler.

                “That’s right, fuck back off to whore island!” Sharky yells after her, leaning so far over the wall Clementine’s a little concerned he’s going to fall. “And if you’re gonna blare music on a boombox, you’re supposed to use ‘In Your Eyes,’ you uncultured idiot!”

                “Well, so much for a quiet morning,” Earl gripes, wiping his shirt where he spilled coffee.

\--

                “You’re sure you’re okay?” Clementine asks Rook for the thousandth time.

                “Oh my God, Clem, I’m fine,” Rook gripes as she pours more ammo in her backpack.

                “I’d go with you, but…”

                “I know, Clem. Stay here. The people here need you.” Rook smiles and gives Clem side eye for a moment. “ _Earl_ needs you. I’ll be fine. I’ve got Sharky and a cougar. What could go wrong?”

                “Haven’t we learned to stop asking that about the cult?” Clementine asks nervously. Rook shrugs. “Did you pack plenty of food?”

                “Jerky. Nuts. Apples. Peanut butter. Plus, you know, I have a gun and a bow and there are these delicious edible things called deer in the _Whitetail_ mountains, Clem.”

                “Just humor me. You’re like the kid I never had, let me worry about you a little.”

                “I also packed an extra jacket, Mom,” Rook says sarcastically, but she’s grinning. Clementine hugs her roughly.

                “You be careful out there, Rook,” she tells her friend. “Jacob is a fucking psychopath. You have that stuff I made you? Good. Should keep the Judges away from you. Those poor wolves.” Finally, Clementine releases Rook and sighs. “You sure you’re gonna be okay?”

                “Oh my God, Clem, I’m leaving before you can ask me that again,” Rook complains, pulling her backpack on and waving to Sharky to follow.

                “Don’t do anything stupid, Rook. I heard about that stunt with the four-wheeler. Breaking Clutch Nixon’s records is not a healthy way to de-stress.” Rook chuckles.

                “I’ll be fine, Clem. I’ll see you in a week.”


	18. Triumph of Evil

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rook's trip to the Whitetail Mountains has gone horribly wrong, and her return to Hope County Jail doesn't go much better.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> THE END IS NEAR! Just *checks notes* seven more chapters! *nervous laugh*  
> To the two people reading (skimming) this story, let me know what you think in the comments. Enjoy!  
> \-----------------------------------------------------------------

                “I should have gone with her.”

                “I – we needed you here. Jacob wants you too bad for you to risk being in the Whitetails. I’m not willing to let you put yourself at risk.”

                “Oh, because now I belong to you?!”

                “You know that’s not what I’m saying, dammit. Clem…”

                “I should have gone with her!” Clementine argues, pacing back and forth. They had argued. They had raised their voices at one another, both angry, both pointing fingers and interrupting one another. When Rook had announced she was going to deal with Jacob, Clementine wanted to go. She could handle herself. She could help with the wolves and bears and cougars and whatever else Jacob had corrupted into being his personal army of attack animals he called “Judges.” Earl had begged her to stay, begged her to let Rook go without her. So she had stayed here. When Jacob’s men came for Rook, Sharky had been knocked out, Nick had been unable to do anything from the air except report the abduction over the radio. Peaches had shown up at the F.A.N.G. Center with a bad limp, a broken canine tooth and a gash down her side. And now Rook was missing. Had been for nearly two months. From what Sharky had said, Rook had taken an arrow to the upper thigh and dropped like a bag of potatoes, insensible. No one knew for certain if it was because the arrow was poisoned, or if they had hit the femoral artery and Rook was dead.

                Sharky was still beating himself up over it, and Clementine could tell that Earl hadn’t forgiven him for his failure either. The two prowled around one another like two angry alley cats, constantly arguing with one another until Sharky stopped coming to the jail entirely and just stayed with Rook’s other guns for hire at the 8-bit Pizza Bar, drinking himself to oblivion at night and lighting cultists on fire during the day. Clementine didn’t know that the outcome would have been any different if she were there, but she couldn’t help feeling guilty for not going. Eli’s Whitetails had been looking for Rook, but so far had only heard rumors of her. They knew Jacob held prisoners at a lodge, but could not verify if Rook was there, and didn’t have the manpower to get in with the present occupation.

                Discouraged and angry, Clementine grabs her pillow, looking at Earl with venom, tired of this fight, tired of him haranguing her not to join the Whitetails to look for his deputy, and her friend. She lies down on a single metal shelf bed in one of the jail cells on the top floor stubbornly, refusing to curl up next to Earl in their bed after a nastier argument than normal. Later in the evening, perhaps an hour after she had laid down, she was still awake, staring at the ceiling. A figure darkens the doorway of her cell.

                “If you think I’m not beating myself up for sending her out there, you’re wrong, Clem,” he murmurs. “I hate that I put her in danger. I hate that I let the cult get this powerful. I blame myself for this whole…this whole goddamn mess! Hell, I wish I could undo it. I wish I could have been taken instead of her. Hell, I wish I could have handled things differently from the very beginning, but wishing has never done anyone a damn bit of good.” He pauses for a moment, gives a great sigh. “I wasn’t the only person who didn’t see the cult for what it was until it was too late. Even Rook’s dad didn’t think they were a threat and he’s the best goddamn police officer I ever served with. Hell, I think half of them voted for me in the past elections because I was so goddamn oblivious. But there’s no reset button here. I can’t undo any of this, but I can tell you that if you had been with her, the only difference is you’d be wearing a pine overcoat or you’d be drinking yourself to death at 8-bit with Sharky.” She ignores him, resolutely staring at the ceiling, still furious and sad and worried. He steps into the cell and she rolls her eyes, but doesn’t look at him. Knees clicking in protest, he lies down on the floor beside her bed, pulling a blanket over himself. They lie there for a long, long while.

                “My dad always told me not to go to bed angry with someone I love,” she says finally, voice soft. Earl is quiet, listening. “I’m not angry at you. Not really. I just feel so powerless.” They lie, him on the floor, her on the metal bunk, silent again. She holds a hand out and feels him take it, his hand warm and comforting. “You’re going to kill your back,” she tells him.

                “I’m not going to wake everyone up stumbling back downstairs at this hour,” he tells her.

                “Come here,” she says, scooting as close to the wall as possible. With a small groan of pain, he grabs his back with his hand as he stands and climbs onto the uncomfortable cell bed with her. There’s barely enough room for the both of them, but she uses his chest as a pillow and they make it work.

                A week later they get a radio call from Eli that Rook was found strapped to a chair and lying in a puddle of her own urine in a room full of dead bodies. Rook refuses to answer the radio when Earl calls to her.

                Two weeks after Eli’s transmission, Rook comes through the jail doors, and she’s barely recognizable. Sharky is half-carrying her, looking at her like she might break as he keeps his arms around her waist, acting more gentle than Earl thought he was capable of.

                “Jesus, Rook,” Earl whispers, horrified. She has always been thin, always been agile and muscular, but the figure before him now is emaciated and so pale her skin looks gray. Her usually full cheeks are sunken in and sallow. You can see the divot between her arm bones. Each finger and tendon stands out in stark contrast, her fingernails are ringed in dirt, the ends green-black with filth. Her cargo pants are staying up only because they are hooked by the points of her pelvis. There are dark black circles under her eyes. Her eyes look dull, half-dead.

                “Oh my God…what the fuck happened?” Clementine whispers, taking Charity’s arm gently. Charity flinches away, looking terrified.

                “Here, sit down,” Earl says, but Charity stumbles backwards out of Sharky’s grip, away from all of them.

                “No! No. I don’t want to be in the chair anymore. No.”

                “Rook…do you know where you are?” Charity looks around robotically and straightens, brow furrowed.

                “Yes. Hope County Jail. I’m here for ammo.”

                “No can do, amigo, you’re here to rest,” Sharky tells her. She glares at him for a moment, but then takes a deep breath.

                “Can I have something to eat?” Her voice is so suddenly plaintive, so childlike that Earl feels a sudden insane desire to weep, his heart aching for his deputy.

                “You can have whatever you want,” Sharky assures her gently, shaking his head grimly at Earl’s concerned look. “I’ve been savin’ that Twinkie in my backpack, but it’s yours if you want it, Popo.” Sharky looks at her expectantly for a response, for an objection to the insulting nickname, though it’s said affectionately. She doesn’t react, just totters weakly inside as Sharky guides her.

                “What the ever-loving fuck?” Clementine whispers again, looking to Earl. Earl’s voice is shaking with rage when he says to both of them,

                “You do whatever you need to bring her back from this.”

\--

                Clementine sights down the road cautiously through her binoculars, aware of the footsteps behind her.

                “You know, Clementine, don’t take this the wrong way, but I’m impressed when a woman goes for a man in uniform. Shows discipline.”

                “Sharky…” she warns, irritated.

                “No, I’m just sayin’, some people might call you a ‘badge bunny’ or say you’re just with the sheriff because he enjoys bein’ with a younger woman so he’s more appreciative, but I really think it shows that you go after what you want, and I respect that.”

                “Stop talking, Sharky.” He is silent for all of thirty seconds.

                “Is it the mustache? Cuz I can see how it would be useful, tickling in all the right spots, you know, just really gettin’ in there and....”

                “Sharky.” Clementine stops and decides to fight fire with fire. “I am with Earl because I love him,” she tells him, but then her look goes mischievous, “but I stay with him because he’s hung like a horse.” She looks over at Charity, expecting a reaction, but she only gets the barest of uncomfortable looks from her friend. Christ, Jacob must have done a number on her.

                “Oh. Well, then,” Sharky says, looking awkward and blushing.

                “Now if you’re done harassing me about something that is absolutely none of your business, keep up. We need to get up to the depot and back before dark.” She glances at her watch. Their patrol goes by quietly, no Peggies showing up so far. They pass the convenience store where the sign outside says, “CAN SODA MILK BREAD”. “They’re asking the important questions,” Clementine says solemnly, but with deep amusement, nudging Charity. Charity smiles a bit.

                At least now, two weeks after she stumbled through the gates, she doesn’t look like a skeleton. All the Hope county residents living in the jail had plied her with the best morsels of food, offering her their shares in a collective kindness that warms Clementine’s heart when she thinks about it. Slowly but surely, Charity’s body recovered. The same could not be said for her mind. She was quiet, more reserved and eerily still than Clementine remembered. She hoped an excursion, a trip in sunlight with two friends would help. “You’ll be okay, kid,” Clementine tells her, hoping that it’s true.

                “I know,” Charity says after a beat, looking a little shamefaced and a little anguished. “I just – I don’t want to talk about it. What happened. It was bad.” Clementine nods. “Do you remember when we took ASL together at the Y when you had a crush on that deaf guy?” Charity asks her suddenly. Clem chuckles.

                “I remember some of it. I think I only barely remember the alphabet now. Remember how we used to have little secret conversations in the cafeteria?” Charity laughs, finally, the happiest sound she’s produced in days.

                “I remember,” she tells Clementine. “I wish I could go back. Do everything differently.” Clementine frowns.

                “What do you mean?” Charity turns to her, an anguished look on her face. Apparently she does want to talk about it.

                “Pratt was there, Clem. He was there and I couldn’t save him. He was there, just…staring…like Jacob broke him. He’s usually so funny. He’s a goofball, always pulling pranks, always teasing me and he just…stared. Like a fucking taxidermied animal nailed to the wall. Blank. Dead.”

                “You’ll get him out, Rook. I know it. Brace yourself, because this is about to be real fuckin’ cheesy, but….. good will win against evil. Those evil motherfuckers won’t know what hit ‘em when you take them out.”

                “‘The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing,’” Rook says suddenly, stopping and wiping a hand across her face to clear the sheen of sweat there. She looks up at Clementine. “I love him like a father, I do, but Clem…Earl could have stopped this a long time ago.” Clementine clenches her jaw, reins in the automatic response to defend Earl.

                “I know. He knows it too.” Clementine stands there staring at Charity. She has nothing to add to that statement. Because Charity is right. Earl had waited, had ignored the threat until it was too serious to handle solo. By the time Earl acknowledged the threat, the cult was so deeply entrenched that it had infiltrated his department, his forensics team, his dispatchers, everything. Like a tumor, the cult had grown and metastasized until there was too much of it to cut out. And once they had taken over, every agency outside of the county ignored Earl’s calls for help, insisting that if he couldn’t show them evidence of crimes committed, it wasn’t worth their time to investigate. ATF couldn’t be bothered to send an agent, and from what Earl had told her, the one FBI agent who had come hadn’t been heard from again. The Marshal’s office had sent one man, and he was dead and Virgil with him. Sadness courses through Clementine like a cramp at the thought of Virgil.

                Evil had triumphed because a good man had done nothing until it was too late.

                “I know you’re angry, Charity. He wishes he didn’t have to send you out there to deal with this.”

                “I’m not angry at him anymore, Clem,” Charity says, sounding tired. “I’m angry at the Seeds. It’s Earl’s fault they were allowed to stay, but it’s Joseph’s fault they’re here and running a cult in the first place. I realized a while ago that being angry at Earl is directing anger at the wrong person. And…I want to be out here, Clem. I need to be. I’m not fighting the Seeds for Earl, I’m fighting them for me. I’m fighting them because of what they’ve done to my friends. Joseph Seed has to pay for what he’s done. And I’m going to make sure he does.”

\--

                They make their way to the depot and back, and Clementine can see Earl breathe a sigh of relief as they step back through the doors.

                “She okay?” he asks as soon as Rook is out of earshot.

                “She will be, eventually. It’s a lot.”

                “I blame myself,” he reiterates after a moment, wiping fingers through his mustache in frustration. “Every time I see some new _fucked up_ thing they’ve done to her…” Rook has stepped just inside the prison building doors when Earl and Clem hear screaming. They dash inside and Rook is on the floor, holding her hands over her ears, mouth open in a tearing scream.

                “TURN IT OFF!” she shrieks, “TURN IT OFF, NOW!!!!!”

                _“…and you alone can thrill me like you do And fill my heart with love for only you Only you can make all this change in me For it's true, you are my destiny–_ ”

                “Turn that goddamn radio off!” Earl orders whoever is listening. Earl looks down at Charity on the ground, but the person who looks back up at him is not Rook. This is a rabid animal, eyes bloodshot, a thin trail of blood trickling from one nostril.

                “ _– understand the magic that you do You’re my dream come true, my one and –”_

                She’s growling, picking herself up off the floor, crouching like a deranged animal and reaching for her side arm. Earl kicks it out of her hand and she snarls, slamming her fist into his ribcage and he feels something snap. She kicks him backwards, knocking him off balance. Snapping her head to the right, she grabs a shovel leaning against the wall and turns back to Earl, cocking her head slightly. “Turn the fucking radio off NOW!” Earl bellows, scrambling backwards wildly before Charity bashes his head in.

                _“– it’s true, you are my destiny When you hold my ha–”_ There’s a gunshot and the music stops abruptly. The shovel lands with a metallic thud next to Earl’s head and he stares at it, panting roughly.

                Charity meets his eyes and drops to the ground, unconscious.

\--

                “This is my fault,” Earl says grimly once again. “I sent her out there.” His tone is full of grief and self-hatred.

                “It’s her job, Earl. And more to the point, she wants to do it. She told me so. Hudson’s too damaged to help, and you need to coordinate people here, but fuck, look at the web of support this kid has built. These people love her. I’m pretty sure Sharky would die for her. You and I both have to stop beating each other up about it. I’ll tell you what, after this is all over, we’ll pay for her therapy,” Clementine says, only half-joking Earl chuckles grimly, pulling his hat off and running his fingers back through his hair before he sets the brown Stetson back on his head.

                “After this is all over I’ll do everything in my power to make sure the state of Montana gives her such a severance package she won’t have to work another day in her life. For Hudson and Pratt too.”

                “Fuckin’ A,” Clementine says, with feeling. She knew Pratt, had shared drinks with all the deputies before. He was a good guy. The thought of him being tortured right now pained her, what Charity had described of seeing him haunted her. Enough was enough. It was nearly time to put an end to all of this.


	19. At What Cost

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Clem and Earl have to come to terms with Rook killing Eli, not knowing why she did it, or if it was justified. It makes Earl question if destroying the cult is worth the cost.  
> \-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

                Years ago, when Earl was a young child growing up in eastern Montana, he had encountered a young racoon. He had been hiding from his father, who was furious about some slight or other and looking to use his belt or his fists on Earl. Trembling, his unruly blonde hair falling in his eyes, Earl had scrambled up a tree, tears streaking down his cheeks in terror of his father’s retribution. He could hear him calling and didn’t know if the beating would be worse if he turned himself in, or if his father found him. Frozen with fear, he had stayed perched in the tree. A chittering noise next to him made him jump, losing his grip on the branch he was holding. Earl landed on his back with a hard thump that knocked the wind out of him. Gasping for air, he had pushed himself up on his elbows as the little bandit-masked creature tottered down the tree after him, curious, little hands touching his booted foot gingerly.

                “H-hey little fella,” Earl had said, reaching out a hand to it.

                “Get away from that filthy animal,” his father snapped, appearing suddenly and grabbing him hard by the shirt collar. The big man yanked Earl backward roughly. “Damn thing will give you rabies. Go get me my gun.” Earl had been too terrified of his father to argue. When he returned with the rifle, handing it to his father with a shaking hand, the man had snatched it from him and aimed it at the little creature. Petrified, Earl had done nothing, had stood, pale-faced and filled with dread. “When a wild animal gets too close, you put it down. You don’t hesitate.” A loud crack and the racoon dropped. “You just do what needs to be done. Now get inside.”

\--

                Earl had never forgotten the tiny beast that had saved him from another vicious beating, had thanked God that night on his knees beside his threadbare mattress for the little animal’s sacrifice.

                Coming back to the moment, Earl felt frozen, just as he had been that night with the racoon. He listens to Wheaty’s angry, tearful transmission to Hope County Jail and Fall’s End, letting the rest of the resistance fighters know what had happened.

                “It’s not possible. It can’t be true. She would not do that,” Clementine says, tone sure.

                “You saw her the last time she came in here, Clem,” Earl says quietly, but his tone is aghast. “We haven’t seen her in a month. It’s possible. You know it is.”

                “Your – Rook would not murder someone. Especially not Eli. It’s just not possible.”

                “Clem, you didn’t look her in the eyes when that song started playing – she looked like she would have killed me, let alone anyone else. She would have killed Sharky or you or everyone in the room in the state she was in. Her eyes were unfocused. She was a wild animal and a trained killer. You’ve seen it in those wolves. In those cougars. He’s turning her into a Judge.” Clem shakily wipes hair out of her eyes, still unbelieving. “I don’t know about you,” Earl says gently, “But I could use a walk.”

                Stepping outside the walls, each with a weapon and a radio, Earl and Clem follow the road down to an open field that looks like a rainbow blanket, all wildflowers and native sedge grass.

                “How did it get this bad, Earl?” Clementine says finally. Earl stands back up from picking a Scarlet Paintbrush, adding it to the handful of flowers he’s been picking methodically.

                “Just here, or the world at large? Because from what I can tell, it’s bad everywhere,” he tells her tiredly. “China and Russia are both at odds with the US worse than ever. Climate change is, well, I mean, look at the weather, it’s ten degrees hotter right now than it should be this time of year, but god help me don’t tell the republicans who voted me into office I said that,” he mutters. “Religious megalomaniacs are a dime a dozen, doomsday fanatics have more ammo for their opinions than ever. It’s not just here, darlin’.”

                “Yeah, well, it’s still pretty fucking bad here, Earl,” Clem snaps in irritation.

                “Yes, I know,” he says, raising his voice, “and somehow it’s all entirely _my fault!_ Never mind that I did report this cult. Never mind that I _did_ send out evidence. Never mind that I did all the things a sheriff is supposed to do and it didn’t accomplish jack shit. Those reports? Dead ended. That evidence? Lost in the mail and erased from the server. Never mind that I stopped trying to fight the cult because every time I did, more people vanished. You think I wanted to ‘leave well enough alone’ because I really thought that was the best solution? I wanted to leave well enough alone because I was tired of losing people and didn’t have any other options available to me. And then you got kidnapped and all hell broke loose.”

                “You’re not seriously blaming this mess on me?” Clementine asks, incredulous. Earl scowls, clenches his fists.

                “Of course not, but goddammit, I wish there was a better solution.” Earl looks down at his hand, sees the crushed wildflowers there, sighs and drops them. “I wish there was a solution that hadn’t destroyed Rook.”

                “She’s not destroyed, Earl. She’s stronger than you give her credit for. She always has been. She’s always known how worried you were that she wasn’t cut out for the job. She’s always known that you thought she wanted to be a deputy just to feel closer to her dad. But that’s not true. She wanted the job to save people. She wanted the job to do the right thing. And whatever Jacob did or did not do to her, I know she’ll do the right thing, in the end. She knows what to do.”

                “I hope you’re right,” Earl mutters.

                “In the meantime,” Clementine says, brightening, “There’s not a goddamn thing we can do about what’s going on with Rook right now. So, how about you pick me some more flowers and try not to destroy them this time?”

                “Oh, you thought I was picking those for you?” he teases, relaxing.

                “Well, I figured they were either for me or Tracey.”

                “She’s a little young for me, don’t you think?”

                “Are you calling me old?” she demands, shoving him playfully. They walk, arm in arm, Earl occasionally bending down to pick a flower until he stops suddenly, stumbling back.

                “Get back,” he demands, tugging at Clementine’s arm. “Right now!” She obeys, frowning a little. “There’s a patch of Angel’s Trumpets, the Bliss flowers, just down there,” he points.

                “Shit,” she mutters under her breath. Earl is suddenly frozen in place, going a little dizzy at the scent of the plants, his mind flashing to unpleasant moments of torture and anguish. Unwanted, unpleasant but somehow stimulating touch. Thoughts of death. Thoughts of suicide. Begging for release. Loneliness. Pain. Agony, both physical and mental. Guilt. Overwhelming, inescapable guilt.

                “Earl. Earl? Earl!” He shakes himself, meeting Clementine’s eyes uneasily. “Let’s go home,” she tells him, brooking no argument.

                Clearly Rook wasn’t the only one damaged by the Seeds.

\--

                The next morning, Earl awakens to an empty bed. Worried, he gets up, scratching his chest and yawning, shaking sleep away like a pest as he pulls on pants and an undershirt. It’s early, he realizes, glancing at his watch, five o’ clock in the morning. He usually got up at six, Clem usually got up at eight, or later if she could help it. For her to be missing was odd. He pads out into the hallway barefoot, and finds Clementine packing a backpack in the storage room across the hall from the infirmary.

                “You planning on sending me a ‘Dear John’ letter from wherever you’re going?” he asks softly. She jumps, dropping a first aid kit with a little squeak.

                “You know for a six foot tall human you can walk _really_ quietly,” she tells him, holding a hand to her chest and taking a deep breath. “Scared the shit out of me.”

                “Tends to happen when you’ve got a guilty conscience,” he prods. “Where you headed, darling?” he asks her, his tone hurt. She looks up at him guiltily, blushing a little.

                “I’m gonna go find Rook. After what happened yesterday…” she shakes her head, bites her lower lip, worrying it with her teeth. “I know we talked about this, but I have to know, I have to talk to her.”

                “Hold your horses,” he says, “We don’t know what’s going on. We don’t even know if she’s safe to be around.” He hates himself for saying it the instant the words are out of his mouth. Clementine stares at him, mouth agape. She furrows her brow.

                “This is Rook, Earl. Christ, she might as well be your daughter, everyone knows that. You’re really suggesting that, what, she’s just a wild animal we should put down?” For a moment, Earl hears his father’s voice in his head, those words from so many years ago echoing.

_“When a wild animal gets too close, you put it down. You don’t hesitate. You just do what needs to be done.”_

                “I never said that,” Earl says, pointblank. “But I am saying we need to be careful. We need to get her some help.” It’s no good beating about the bush anymore.

                “No, what we need,” she tells him, zipping up the backpack roughly, furious, “is to get the whole story from Rook. There had to be a reason. There has to be more than just murder, she would not just murder, Rook is not a murd…” Clementine dissolves into tears before she can finish the word, a hard sob wracking through her. Earl comes close, cautious. Before he can reach her, she stumbles into him, wrapping her arms around him, smashing her face into his chest, shuddering hard with tears.

                “I know there’s a reasonable explanation for it, Clem. But going out there to find it is not the answer. Give her some time. She’ll come around. Sharky’s still with her, I’m sure. He’s like a damn dog, won’t leave her side,” Earl says with annoyance. He still couldn’t quite bring himself to like the guy given how many times he’d had him in the back of his squad car throughout the years, but he begrudgingly accepted that Sharky was a good friend to Rook.

                The two of them walk to the control room, which is where the coffee maker is kept.

                “Morning, Sheriff,” Footy says as he sits half-slumped in his chair where he’s monitoring the cameras and the radio. He gives a wide yawn and looks grateful when he sees Earl working on making a fresh pot of coffee. He is pouring water into the appliance when there’s a harsh crackle from the radio. Footy turns, ready to take down a message.

                “This is Tammy Barnes. If anyone out there has their ears on, I’ve got good news. Rook killed Jacob. She flooded his bunker and rescued Pratt.” There’s a pause. “A memorial service will be held for Eli tonight at seven.”

                Earl picks up the radio urgently, pushing Footy aside.

                “Tammy, put Rook on.” There is a long silence, then rustling.

                “Rook’s not available, Sheriff. She’s – she won’t come to the radio.” Earl meets Clementine’s eyes.

                “You tell her…” he collects himself, “you remind her that whatever happened is not her fault. You tell her…you tell her…goddamn it,” he says softly. “I don’t know what to tell her, Tammy. But she’s welcome to come back here, if she will.” A crunch of static.

                “I will, Sheriff.”

                “So, it’s just Joseph left,” Clementine whispers. “Oh my God. It’s almost over. It’s almost done. She just has to find Joseph and the cult is done for.” Earl’s shoulders are slumped, tired.

                “But at what cost?” he asks softly.


	20. Let Me Go

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Earl is tormented with worry for Rook. Clementine promises coffee. Both of them are betrayed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please note, I altered the timeline slightly. First portion of this chapter is set in 2013, a correction from the originally posted timeline in chapter 1.  
> \----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

                “Jonah, what the hell do you mean your department needs another ten grand for the third quarter? Look, do you think Hope County Sheriff’s department is made of money? Hang on, I said ‘hang on,’ goddamn it. What is it, Rookie?” Earl asks, holding the phone receiver away from his mouth. Hudson is standing timidly at his office door.

                “Sir, Miller’s squad car just got another flat. He needs a tow.”

                “Tell him to walk back,” Earl snaps, flopping his hat down onto his desk in irritation.

                “All due respect sir, he’s up in the Whitetails. That’s quite a walk.” Earl pinches the bridge of his nose between thumb and forefinger.

                “Just give him a ride back, Rookie.”

                “The car?” Hudson asks

                “Does it not have a spare tire?” he snaps.

                “Miller used the spare tire last month. You said you’d order some new tires last quarter.”

                “Is someone sprinkling screws in the road or something? Jesus Christ, Hudson, just pick him up and get the hell back here. I’ve got a quarterly budget to finish and this jackass is asking for another ten grand for animal control.” There’s angry squeaking pouring out of the speaker of the phone in his hand suddenly so he puts the receiver back to his mouth with a sheepish look. “No, Jonah, I’m sorry, yes, _fine_ , I’ll rearrange some funds.” With an irritated sigh, Earl slams the phone down into its cradle. “Well?” he asks Hudson. She vanishes, making a beeline for the door. Furious, Earl flips back through his budget report, swearing under his breath nastily. “Nancy!” he hollers.

                “Yeah, Sheriff?”

                “Can you get me a burger from Spread Eagle? I haven’t eaten anything all day.”

                “You know, it wouldn’t kill you to eat a vegetable, Earl.” He glares at her over his tinted glasses. She holds her hands up in surrender. “Alright, alright, one bison burger, extra cheese, no onions, coming up. I’ll be back in twenty.”

                “Make it ten,” he gripes. There’s another timid knock at his office door a few minutes later. He shuts his mouth to prevent the nasty jibe that was about to escape him when he realizes who it is. “Howdy stranger,” he says, smiling at Charity. He doesn’t really have time to socialize, but he couldn’t snap at his favorite animal control officer. She’s wearing her green polo and tan khakis, her animal control badge clipped to her waist and a ketchpole in her hand.

                “Hey, Sheriff. Um, don’t shoot the messenger…”

                “Spit it out,” he says wearily, stomach dropping. So much for being happy to see her.

                “Jonah sent me over to say he’ll need that ten grand changed to twelve. We all need new ketchpoles,” she says, holding hers up in demonstration. The loop of wire designed to snare animals safely was chewed to shit.

                “What the hell is animal control catching with those things, Charity?” he asks, annoyed. She shrugs.

                “Oh, you know. Pit bulls. Squirrels. Raccoons. The occasional coyote. Wolverines.”

                “Aren’t those last three the game warden’s job?” he queries, incredulous.

                “When’s the last time you saw the game warden bother to come to this county, Sheriff?” she asks dryly. He huffs an annoyed sigh, thanking Nancy when she drops a greasy brown bag on his desk.

                “You tell Jonah he’ll get eleven and not a cent more,” Earl says, unwrapping the greasy burger and taking a bite. “And you can also tell him if he sends my favorite animal control officer with more bad news again, I’ll have worse names for him than ‘jackass,’” he tells her around a mouthful, aggravated. Charity chuckles and starts to step away, stops, frowning.

                “Sheriff, when’s the last time you didn’t just eat a tv dinner or fast food by yourself at night?” He gives her a dangerous look, but she stumbles on. “I just…I worry about you, Sheriff. Why don’t we grab some dinner tonight? I can tell you about that new bow I’m working on making. You can tell me about…you know, your day,” she suggests awkwardly, not knowing any of his hobbies other than fishing. He’d rather she not know about his hobby of writing, he thinks, flushing.

                “I’ve got a lot of work to finish up here, kid,” he tells her honestly.

                “Sheriff Whitehorse, do you know what day Sunday is?” He shrugs.

                “It’s Father’s Day.” Earl looks at her expectantly. “It’s been five years since I actually had a dad on that day. If you don’t want to it’s fine, it’s just…it’s hard. It’s really, really hard this year,” she admits. Earl softens suddenly.

                “Alright, kid. Alright. I gotta finish these reports. You swing by the station at six. We’ll go to 8-Bit. My treat. Now get out of here, go catch a dog or take a bite report or something. What am I paying you for? Go!” She grins and takes off and he smiles a little after her, his mood improved considerably.

                While Earl’s mood had lightened, it hadn’t lessened his workload. He flips through Excel sheets and emails, cursing the day he decided to run for re-election. He’d been sheriff for thirteen years, three election cycles and damn, had it gotten boring. How a job could simultaneously be boring as all get out and stressful as hell was beyond him, but it paid okay, and he enjoyed being a useful member of the community. Recently, however, even that had been a stretch. This church run by Joseph Seed was getting a little out of hand, but so far they hadn’t done a damn thing he could do anything about. So, he kept a stiff upper lip, did his job and went home to…well, to tv dinners just like Charity had said. He feels a warmth in his chest at her wanting to grab dinner with him. She missed her dad. He missed him too. Her father had been his best friend. If Earl could be half the man Abraham Rook was, he’ll be twice the man he’d ever thought he could be.

                Earl snarfs down his burger, changing numbers in his report and rubbing absently at his left arm. It felt tight, achy. His heart did an odd little flip in his chest and he clears his throat, shaking himself when he feels the room go a little sideways. He continues working, flexing his left arm and stroking his mustache as he adjusts the budget and finishes up his notations on the previous month’s incident reports. His chest burns and he opens his desk drawer, downing half a dozen Tums and continuing to work, ignoring the worse-than-usual indigestion the burger had given him. Stretching, he feels an accompanying ache in his chest and he rubs at his ribcage uncomfortably, pulling his glasses off and wiping sweat from his face before setting them back onto the bridge of his nose.

                “Nancy, can I get some coffee?” he asks, not looking up from his reports. He glances up, sees the time. Five-forty-five. Everyone who worked in the sheriff’s office was gone for the day, the on-call officers either at the fire station or at home. Only the dispatchers in the adjourning building were still here. Shrugging, he stands, but then sits right back down with a groan. It feels like an semi has run him over. He groans, clutching at his chest and feeling it go tight. Gasping for air, he reaches for the phone but a spasm of pain jolts through his arm. He sees the edges of his periphery go gray and slumps in his chair, his pulse pounding irregularly in his ears before everything goes black.

                “Earl. Earl! Hey, hey, hey, hey,” Charity’s voice comes and he can feel her smacking him gently on the cheek. “Hey, put these in your mouth. I think you’re having a heart attack. Come on, here.” He opens his mouth feebly and tastes bitter tablets...aspirin, he realizes vaguely, clutching Charity’s hand with one of his own. “This is five-six-four to dispatch, send a bus to the sheriff’s office for a cardiac event, repeat, send a bus to the sheriff’s office.”

                “That’s clear, five-six-four, bus is en route now. ETA two minutes.”

\--

                When Earl had awakened in the hospital, Charity had been there, checking in on him, smiling shyly and telling him all about the wooden recurve bow she was making by hand. He had listened, exhausted and still woozy from all the medications as she told him about her craftmanship, about her tools. She had been there for him after his heart attack, the daughter he’d never had or felt he deserved. Now he regretted that he couldn’t be there for her, that he couldn’t comfort her through the trauma of being forced to kill one of her own friends. It pained him deeply that she wouldn’t pick up the radio, wouldn’t talk to him or Clem or anyone. Sharky had assured him that she was alright, he had sounded unsure himself. Tammy had explained the circumstances of Eli’s death, but Earl was sure that the fact Rook was forced into it didn’t make the guilt any easier to bear.

                It was the wee hours of the morning just a week after Rook had killed Jacob and Earl was wide awake. Unable to sleep, he had slipped out of bed and muttered to Clem that he was going to walk down to the old bridge. She had grouchily murmured that she’d make some coffee and join him in a few minutes. He stands in the cool night air listening to the river far below, worrying about Rook, thinking about how she might be feeling, having murdered a friend while brainwashed and having finally killed the last of Joseph’s immediate family as a result. Had revenge made her feel better, or worse, he wonders.

                 Earl feels responsible, feels complicit in Rook’s torture and the damage this entire situation has done to her. The last time he had seen her there had been madness in her, her usually gentle green eyes wild and carrying the warning of sudden violence if you made the wrong move or, apparently, played the wrong song. Dealing with the Seeds, being branded by John, being manipulated by Faith, being tortured by Jacob, being taunted by Joseph – it had broken something in Rook.

                Taking a deep drag from his cigarette, Earl turns when he hears footsteps on the bridge, expecting Clementine and coffee. He sees Clementine walking toward him, but notices Rogers and Tracey just behind her. Had something happened?

                “Hey Earl,” Tracey says as they approach, voice sounding off, more flat and emotionless than usual. She is staring at him blankly, eyes glazed with green. Earl’s stomach sinks when he detects that sickly sweet gardenia and vanilla smell, sees that same green glaze over Rogers’ eyes. The stocky young man is holding a gun to Clementine’s head. Her hands are bound behind her back he can see now by the light of the half moon. “Quietly, or Clementine dies.”

                “Tracey, what–”

                “Just come with me quietly and no one gets hurt. Rogers will be staying behind with Clem to make sure you don’t try anything stupid. No heroics, Earl. Not this time.”

                “Earl…” Clem says, face anguished.

                “Shut up,” orders Rogers flatly. “Our orders are to take the sheriff to the Father. He is to become part of the family.” A chill runs through Earl. This is serious, even more serious than when he had been taken by Faith. Clementine closes her eyes for a moment, takes a deep breath. Tracey and Rogers had gone out earlier that evening to get canned goods from a local convenience store with the intention of staying there the night and driving the supplies back the next day. Apparently the cult had gotten to them, drugged them. They had both been in Faith’s control before this, so it doesn’t surprise Earl that they were being controlled by the Bliss yet again. Earl doesn’t see a way out of this situation that ends with everyone alive if he fights, so he is silent, cooperative.

                “Earl. I love you. I’ll see you soon,” Clementine promises him, eyes hard and determined, which scares the shit out of him. She’s going to get herself killed if she’s not careful. Being with him had given her too much courage, too much bravado. Where once she lived in terror of being caught by Jacob, she now relished the opportunity to fight cultists, and while she still feared for her own safety, all her caution flew out the window when someone she loved was in danger. Earl loved this woman more than life itself and he felt dread knowing she was probably going to put herself in harm’s way to save his sorry ass. Rather than lecture her, or beg her not to get herself killed, he saves his breath, knowing it would be a waste to tell this stubborn, beautiful woman what to do. Instead, he murmurs,

                “I love you too,” feeling his heart in his throat as he says it, not knowing if it will be his last chance to do so. Earl allows himself to be tied up once he and Tracey reach the end of the rope bridge and he spots a cult pickup pulling up slowly, headlights off. Craning his head desperately as he is led away, he can see Clementine where she stands with Rogers still holding her in the middle of the long rope bridge. Tracey guides him to the truck and a gaggle of cultists get out, more appearing out of the woods, all carrying weapons.

                “You said if I came quietly Clem wouldn’t be hurt,” Earl reminds Tracey.

                “What happens to Clem now is entirely up to her,” Tracey tells him vacantly, brown eyes still glazed over with green. The group of cultists tucks in close around him like vultures. One of them jams a dirty rag in his mouth and ties it in place to keep him from calling for help. They pick him up and toss him in the back of the pickup roughly and he winces as his ribcage hits the gunnel hard.

                “Let’s go,” one of them says. “I want time to have a little fun with this one. He killed three of my friends last week.” The last Earl can see of Clementine is her silhouette against the dark night sky, struggling with Rogers.

                The cultists pull into a blank section of road several miles from the jail and toss Earl out roughly. He groans around the cloth gag, ribs and back aching. One of them grabs him by the collar, yanking him up. The man pulls Earl’s hat off and sets it on the tailgate of the truck, staring hard into his eyes.

                “The Father says we’re supposed to bring you to him. He said ‘alive,’ not ‘uninjured.’” With that, Earl gets a vicious strike to his left eye, his head snapping back hard, his glasses shattering and falling off the bridge of his nose. He winces, feeling a cut from the broken glass and his eye already starting to swell shut. Another kicks him hard in the ribs, then another punches him on his right cheek, splitting the skin open easily. The blows keep coming until Earl is certain that this is how he’s going to die. He remembers a dozen barroom brawls he had in his younger days. He had had quite a temper, once upon a time, no doubt a remnant of his father in him. He remembers throwing similar punches and kicks, remembers taking them as well. But this staccato of constant abuse by fists and feet is too much, and he blacks out.

\--

                “Fuck you, Rogers, get off me. I know you’ve been drugged, but I will not hesitate to hurt you if you don’t let me go after Earl,” Clementine threatens, stomach flip-flopping when she looks down at the flowing water far below where only a couple of months before Earl had flung his wedding ring.

                “I am not supposed to let you go after Earl,” Rogers says in a dead voice. Clementine struggles against him, not caring about the gun at her head.

                “Rogers! Goddammit, let me go!” He leans her far over the rope railing of the swaying bridge, and obeys.


	21. The Last Time

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A bit of introspection for Earl. Nothing much else.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wrote this chapter for my husband, so apologies if it is terribly cheesy.  
> \-------------------------------------------------------------------

                All Earl can think as he bumps around the back of the pickup like a bruised sack of potatoes is that he wishes he had known that the last time was going to be the last time. He’s fairly certain that he is being driven to his death. After he had awakened, he had stayed very still, assessing his injuries. Someone must have made the beating stop because he still had all his teeth and his hat had been jammed back onto his head, the wide brim preventing him from being able to see. Instead of trying to crane his head for a view of his captors and surroundings, he listens carefully, letting them think he is still knocked out. Evidently the cult had captured Hudson and Pratt as well as several of Rook’s other friends and they were all being brought to the Eden’s Gate Compound on the northern island. He thanks his lucky stars that Clementine had been a bargaining chip to capture him and not been kept prisoner herself. He knows that his presence at Eden’s Gate is likely a trap for Rook, he knows that he will probably be executed, or worse, when they reach Eden’s Gate and Rook arrives. But instead of dwelling on what might happen, he thinks of what he wishes he had done, if he had known that the previous night was his and Clementine’s last time together.

                Earl is an old-fashioned guy. He never really thought of himself that way until Clementine started trying to get him to try new things. And by “new things,” he means bondage, dirty talk, spankings. That last one still gave him pause. He didn’t like hurting her, even if she was enjoying it. To him, love-making had always been just that – making love. Sure, there had been a few rolls in the hay in his teens and early twenties, meaningless expressions of pleasure and nothing else, but he never really enjoyed sex as much without caring about the person he was with. He’d been mocked for it a few times, teased for being too gentle and too sweet. He didn’t really understand why that was a bad thing even now.

                But despite his typically vanilla behaviors in the bedroom, Clementine had shown him new possibilities, new positions and new sensations, proving once and for all that an old dog can absolutely learn new tricks if given the right motivation.

                The first time she’d used his title in the bedroom, for instance, he’d thought he was going to pass out from arousal, going a little light-headed when she growled out the word “sheriff” in that absolutely sinful tone. Her love for using his title in bed was second only to her love for using his cuffs. He had walked into their room one evening to find Clementine naked as the day she was born with her hands cuffed behind her. She had asked for the sheriff to punish her, the way she used his title and bent her pert ass in the air giving him feelings he couldn’t fully explain. After that extremely memorable evening, he couldn’t quite look people in the eye when they called him “Sheriff” instead of “Earl” or “Whitehorse.” But, while he loved her playfulness and creativity, he still liked making good-old-fashioned love, all slow movements and gentle caresses. He made it worth her while, diligently using his mouth and his fingers until Clementine was squirming and begging for him to enter her even without all the theatrics.

                So if Earl had known it was going to be the last time, he wouldn’t have cuffed Clementine to the bedframe. He wouldn’t have entered her from behind. He wouldn’t have taken that sweet little smile for granted when they laid together after, her tracing “I love you” in his chest hair like she thought he didn’t know, like she thought he wouldn’t notice the unmistakable feeling of those words written on his body by her hand. Pushing away the noise of the truck, the talking of the cultists, the agony of his beaten body, he thinks that he would have kissed her slowly, styling himself Rhett Butler – kissing her often because he goddamn knows how. He knows how her lips move with his, how she giggles when his mustache tickles her, how he dips his head to make up for the height difference as she stands on tiptoes to reach.

                If he had known it was the last time, Earl would have slipped Clementine’s shirt off gently, let her do the same to him. Would have pushed her back toward the bed, sliding her jeans down before the back of her knees hit the mattress and she sits with a little startled huff. He would have held her there, chests pressed skin-on-skin, feeling their hearts beat together. He would have reveled in the sound of her soft breathing through lips parted with arousal. Dipping his face to her neck, Earl would have planted kisses there, smelling her perfume, a vanity she still allowed herself while living in the jail.

                If he had known it was the last time, Earl would have ignored the hard concrete floor, would have gone down to his knees, pulling her toward the edge of the bed with his hands gripping her supple thighs. He would have pleasured her with his mouth as he had done so many times before. He would have slid gently into her, holding himself up and meeting her gaze, looking into those wondrous brown eyes and counted himself a lucky man for getting an angel to fall for him. He would have run his hands over her chest, caressed her scars, kissing them to assure her that he loves her just as she is, that nothing would ever make him stop loving her. Slowly, tenderly, he would have slid his hands down her freckled arms to her palms and pulled her left hand to his mouth to kiss the back of it, to touch with his lips the finger that would have borne his ring.

                If he had known it was the last time, Earl would have hovered over her, putting all his love and passion and life into her, worshipping her with his body because she is, has always been, will always be the only god he believes in. He would have slowed, pulling her close, pulling her up to him, kissing her soft hair, tracing her seashell ear, and thumbed her kiss-swollen red lips before pressing his own to them again. He would have explored with his tongue, smiling awkwardly at the click of teeth together, too excited to kiss one another to use any caution. He would have kissed her a thousand times, just to memorize the taste of her, just to remind himself that she is real and his.

                If he had known it was the last time, Earl would have held her hand to his chest so she could feel his heart beat for her. He would have rolled them over, let her ride atop him like a conquering hero. He would have said “I love you, I love you, I love you,” again and again until words failed him, until time stood still. And when at last they crested that hill together and climaxed with sighs and gentle words, he would have held her afterwards, no sheet between them. He would have stroked her soft skin, and kissed her again, just because he could, just because she was his and he was hers. He would have drifted off to sleep with her head resting on his chest, watching her, adoring her, feeling her trace “I love you, I love you, I love you” onto his chest until it was branded on his heart. He would have held her close to keep her safe from the world.

                But he didn’t know it was the last time.


	22. Where It All Began

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rook finally confronts Joseph Seed. Earl has a realization and an epiphany.

                Joseph explodes out of the church, slamming both doors wide open, face furious. There are two leaky barrels of Bliss gas to each side of him, ominous, scenting the air with that familiar, sweet scent. He steps down onto the dry ground in front of the church doors, boots scuffing in the dust. He narrows his eyes, glaring at Rook where she stands, imperious. She had come here to meet his challenge, had come to his compound at his invitation with the knowledge that he had her friends. Before she can say anything, Joseph’s theatrics commence. Earl and the others are lead out from the other buildings near the church, forming a semi-circle behind Rook.

                “And the Lamb broke the fifth seal, and I saw under the altar the souls of the Martyrs, slain because of the Word of God…” He takes a step forward, pointing a finger at Rook’s face. “You’ve made Martyrs of my family…and I am prepared to do the same to yours.”

                Tracey shoves Earl forward and he stumbles, going down to his knees painfully, every joint aching, blackened eye swollen nearly shut. He looks over at Hudson and Pratt, who are also on their knees, also bound. They stare sullenly forward, defeated. He turns back to Tracey, to Mary May, but they have been so drugged with Bliss that their eyes are still glazed with green, the reek of the gas strong on their clothing.

                Earl looks at Rook and though he can only see one side of her face, he can tell she’s not doing well. Her cheeks are sallow again, her skin pale and unhealthy through her look of resolute rebellion. Her clothes hang loose from her bones and she’s wobbling a little on her feet. She waits patiently for Joseph to continue, clenching and unclenching her jaw.

                “God is watching us,” Joseph says, “and He will judge us on what we choose in this moment. I told you that we were living in a world on the brink…where every slight, every injustice, where every choice reveals our sins. And where have those sins led us? Where have those sins led you?”

                Joseph stares at Rook for a long, hard moment. “Your friends have been taken and tortured, and it’s _your_ fault. Countless people have been killed, and it is _your_ fault. The world is on fire and it’s _your_ fault.” Joseph was addressing Rook, but he should have been addressing Earl. Earl bows his head in shame, breathing hard. “Was it worth it?” Joseph asks. “Was it? When are you going to realize that every problem cannot be solved with a bullet?” he asks, mimicking Earl’s words from so long ago, and it makes him look up again. How dare this man make a mockery of his words to his deputies? “When you first came here, I gave you the choice to walk away. You chose not to. In the face of God I am making you that offer one last time. Put down your guns, and you take your friends, you leave me my flock and you go in peace.”

                “‘Go in peace’?! You’re fucking insane!” Hudson screams, her black eyeliner streaked down her face by tears, making her look as though she is wearing warpaint. Rook turns to look at them each, one by one.

                “Is he? We never should have been here in the first place,” Pratt says flatly. Earl meets Rook’s eyes for the first time since she murdered Eli, for the first time since she nearly bashed his brains in with a shovel, for the first time since she killed the last of the Seed siblings. If she did not resist Joseph now, all this, her insanity, her pain, all of their torment, it was for nothing.

                “You know what to do, Rook,” he says in his gravelly voice, confident that it is the truth, knowing she will do what is right.

                Rook turns back to Joseph after nodding to Earl subtly.

                Joseph raises his arms, looking toward heaven.

                “Remember…God is watching,” Joseph tells her as he lowers his arms, meeting her gaze levelly with green-blue eyes through yellow-tinted glasses beneath a receding hairline, his appearance a mocking simulacrum of the true father who is knelt behind her, willing her to do the right thing.

                “Joseph Seed,” she begins, voice trembling, “you’re under arrest for kidnapping with intent to harm, for multiple counts of first degree murder, aggravated assault, illegally administering psychotropic drugs, conspiracy to overthrow local government, assault on a peace officer…I could go on, but I think you get the point, you son-of-a-bitch,” she growls, pulling out a pair of handcuffs. If Earl’s hands weren’t restrained, he’d be applauding.

                Joseph Seed’s head is bowed, he shakes his head.

                “Every slight.” He meets Rook’s eyes. “Every injustice. Every choice reveals our sin! John was wrong. Your sin is not wrath,” he says, tapping a finger into Rook’s chest. “You would rather watch the world suffer and burn than swallow your pride,” he growls through clenched teeth.  Joseph steps back, again, looking to the heavens and lifting his arms, declaring, “And the Lamb broke the sixth seal and lo, there was a great earthquake!” The ground beneath them trembles and Earl feels his blood run cold. What in the blue blazes was going on here? Joseph dumps a barrel of Bliss violently. It splashes and coils upwards, sickly green fumes curling around them. “The sun became black and the moon turned to blood,” Joseph dumps the other barrel and Earl coughs desperately through the scent of Bliss, feeling some of it splash across his front. His world goes green and he stumbles, standing slowly and surveying his surroundings.

                “You know the truth, Earl. The deputy is your enemy. She must be destroyed.” Earl nods, straightening his glasses, confused and disoriented until Joseph touches him gently on the shoulder. Rook is his enemy. She must be destroyed. If she is destroyed, all this will end. It will all stop and Eden’s Gates will finally be open to him, eternal bliss his at last. Dust and debris fly wildly around them, a massive wind storm tearing at the roofs of the buildings around them, billowing sweet-scented gas everywhere.

                “Your friends now see the Truth. They welcome Eden’s Gate into their hearts! They will die for me!” Earl turns, sees Rook standing there with a gun aimed at him. All instincts are telling him to kill, to lift his .44 Magnum and punch a hole straight through her chest, but at the last moment as he squeezes the trigger, he jerks his arm, missing her widely. Her shot hits him instead and he goes down with a groan.

                “Be gone, demon!” Joseph yells from somewhere. Earl hears more shots and cries out for help, the feeling of certainty that Rook is the enemy leeched from him by the pain in his shoulder.

                “Get up, Sheriff, get up, come on, get up,” Rook urges, tugging him to his feet.

                “Christ, Rook, you really pulled my fat out of the fire,” he gasps, rising to his feet and checking his shoulder. There is no blood, no wound. Frowning, he looks to Hudson and Pratt, both panting and seemingly unharmed.

                “It will be sweeter now when you all fall,” Joseph hisses, right next to Rook.

                “Get away from my daughter, you son-of-a-bitch,” Earl snaps, surprising himself and Rook. He fires point-blank at Joseph’s head. Joseph vanishes in a puff of red smoke. Rook looks over at Earl and though she looks utterly exhausted, utterly spent, she gives him a wide grin at his patronymic faux pas. He feels himself blushing. “Eyes on the prize, Rook,” he chides her.

                “What the fuck,” Pratt mutters, looking around as green-tinted wind continues to fling dirt and debris around them.

                “That was crazy,” Hudson pants, shaking herself and looking for the bullet wound that was no longer in her thigh. She looks over at Rook with a little confused frown. “But I don’t think it’s over yet. Keep on your toes, Rook.” Like clockwork, the wind picks up again, howling around Joseph Seed’s voice.

                “I gave you every chance and you threw it all away! You’ve brought the world crashing down around us. Don’t you see that?!” Joseph screams as a disembodied voice.

                “Keep alert, Rook, we’ll get through this,” Earl murmurs, patting her reassuringly on the shoulder. She leans into the touch, giving him a grateful look.

                “Oh shit,” Rook whispers. Her friends, Nick, Tammy, Jerome, Mary May are all running toward them, all armed. “Wing shots only,” she orders, “then revive them, quick as you can. I don’t know if this is a nightmare or an altered reality, but I will not have us killing our friends.” They obey, jogging forward and knocking each person down, only to get them up, making sure they’re thinking straight once they’ve done so.

                “The hands of many are stronger than a few,” Joseph taunts, and they hear another group approaching. “Your pathetic mob cannot stand before the storm!” They shoot him again when he appears, but again and again they issue fatal wounds and Joseph just vanishes, a puff of red smoke as though he was never there. Debris and dirt pelt them wildly as the wind picks up, whirling madly around them like an enormous tornado, blocking out most of the light of the sun. The dusty whirlwind is stained green and reeks of that entirely too familiar sickly sweet gardenia scent. If Earl never has to smell that damned flower again, it will be too soon.

                “This is totally fucking crazy. What the fuck?! Is he comin’ back?” Pratt screams frantically when Joseph is shot dead again, and again vanishes.

                “Everything you’ve done, everything you’ve earned, everything you’ve fought for is for nothing!” Joseph’s voice screams.

                “Come on,” Rook says, meeting Earl’s eyes, “Let’s go.” They stream forward into the dust toward the next crowd of people, guns ready to shoot shoulders or legs, but it doesn’t seem to matter because oddly, upon revival, all wounds vanish. Wheaty runs forward, his braid bobbing on his shoulder and Rook drops him with a shot to the knee. He groans and goes down, but she helps him right back up, cupping his cheek and popping her hand against it to make sure he’s out of his drug-induced stupor.

                “I’m good, Dep,” he assures her, nodding. They work quickly, dropping Grace, then Jess, then Tracey, then Hurk and so on, pulling them to their feet and firing on Joseph when they have the opportunity. Heart in his throat, Earl keeps an eye out for Clementine, but does not find her here. They get everyone to their feet and Joseph’s disembodied voice screams in frustration.

                “Fuck, thanks, Rook,” Jess mutters, climbing to her feet.

                Earl pulls Hurk to his feet and the big man shakes himself as he gets his bearings.

                “Joseph Fuckin’ Seed, am I right?” Hurk comments, but Earl just keeps moving.

                “Where is that son-of-a-bitch?” Grace asks, griping her rifle tightly.

                “Christ, Earl, you okay?” Tracey asks him as he pulls her to her feet. He doesn’t answer. He’s not prepared to have that conversation with her yet, and there’s still more to do.

                All allies revived, they move forward as one back toward the church, all weapons drawn, waiting for Joseph to reappear.

                “You don’t know what you’re doing! Only I can save you! You have to believe me!” Joseph screams, standing from where he was sheltered, just in front of the church. Lip curling, Rook empties a clip into his chest.

                Just like that, the storm is gone. It is bright and sunny again, a normal day. Earl shakes himself, his head aching, his left eye swollen shut. There is cord dangling from one wrist and the other is badly rope burned. Terrifyingly, his gun is in his hand. What the hell had just happened?

                Joseph is on the ground, gasping for breath, but uninjured, coming out of the same nightmare he had just inflicted on all of them, a last-ditch effort to drive them mad and escape. Whatever it had been exactly, nightmare or dream mixed with reality, it hadn’t worked. Rook had won. Earl feels another glow of pride as he unwraps the cord from his wrist and straightens his hat.

                “Forgive them, Father, for they know not what they do,” Joseph is muttering pitifully, but Earl feels not an ounce of pity for him. Joseph turns, on his knees, looking at Rook. “When the Lamb opened the seventh seal, there was silence in Heaven.”

                Nodding to Pratt and Hudson, Earl keeps his weapon trained on the man’s back, walking toward Joseph Seed with sure steps, his deputies at his side, Rook in front of him, Joseph Seed between them.

                “…and the seven angels before God were given seven trumpets,” Joseph says tearfully. A bluejay gives a frantic alarm call, fluttering over. A flock of sparrows, panicked cheeping loud and distracting, zooms over as well. Racoons and squirrels run through the forest canopy, a sudden flurry of panic in the forest. “And there were noises. Thunderings, lightnings,” A flock of crows flies over, cawing frantically. A civil defense siren begins to cry and Earl feels his hair standing on end, but is resolute in ending this _now_ above all else.

                “Joseph Seed,” he booms out, “you’re under arrest.”

                “And I heard a great voice from the temple say to the angels,” Earl snatches Joseph’s arms and cuffs him, but he keep speaking, keeps looking heavenward. “…go your ways and pour from the vials the wrath of God upon the Earth,” Joseph ends with a tone of such accepting finality that it sends a shiver down Earl’s spine. There is a sudden blinding light and a boom like ten thousand grenades going off at once. Earl releases his hold on Joseph’s shoulder and arm and staggers, waiting for his vision to return. When it does, he turns to look and sees a monstrous mushroom cloud just outside the mountainous edge of Hope county. His stomach drops and he turns back to look at Joseph in horror, aghast. Joseph was right. My god, Joseph was right.

                “It is finished, child,” he hears Joseph say to Rook, and Earl meets her eyes. They aren’t filled with tears. They aren’t filled with fear. She half-smiles, a tight, mad smile that sends a jolt of terror straight through Earl. Joseph was right.

                “Oh my God. Oh my God. Oh my God,” Pratt is crying. Joseph starts singing that song, that damned song that has been with Earl at every awful, agonizing point in his life. _Well, why should this one be any different,_ he thinks. Earl turns back to look at Joseph just as the shockwave hits, staggering and bracing himself hard to avoid being knocked off his feet. His hat is flung wildly from his head so he shields his face with a hand, breathing hard, heart hammering in his chest.

                “We gotta get the fuck outta here,” Hudson screams, getting back to her feet, using Earl’s shoulder to steady herself. Rook’s other friends are scrambling for safety, for vehicles or buildings.

                “The truck!” Earl orders, collecting himself. “Move! Move! Move! Move! Move!” he yells, pushing his deputies to safety, dragging Joseph along, dipping once to grab his hat and smash it back onto his head. Damned if he’d let something like an atomic bomb foil bringing this asshole to justice and damned if he was going to do it with his bald head showing, he thinks. “Hudson, you take the back, we gotta go!” Joseph is still singing that infernal song, made all the worse by the fact that he’s wandering somewhere between off-key and very off-key.

                “He was right! He was right! I knew it…I fucking knew it!” Pratt is screaming, panicking.

                “Shut the FUCK up!” Hudson demands, making sure Joseph ends up between her and Pratt in the back. Rook climbs into the driver’s seat, so Earl races to the passenger’s side, dust pelting him painfully.

                “Get movin’! Drive, drive, drive!”

                “Oh shit, oh Jesus help us!” Pratt is crying.

                “Whatever we’re getting paid for this, it is not enough,” Rook jokes grimly, and with that she throws the truck into gear and punches the accelerator.


	23. Better and Better

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Clementine's day just keeps getting better and better.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I honestly could have drug this story out so much longer, and I really wanted to, because I'm super attached to Clem and Earl, but I wanted to give anyone who is reading closure, so there's only a couple more chapters, and they're pretty short. I might have to play with these characters in AU though, because I'm not entirely done with them, I think.

                They say your life flashes before your eyes when you know you’re about to die. Clementine [Terrible Middle Name Redacted] Williams can call bullshit on that, because the only thing she sees is the wide-open sky full of stars and Rogers staring blankly after her as her arms and legs peddle in midair, struggling for something to grab to halt her drop to the river far below. With a wrench of muscle, she manages to turn herself so she’s face down and now all she can see is flowing water and rocks. Everywhere, rocks. She really hopes she hits the water, because goddamn, that is a lot of rocks.

                She hits the water. And a rock.

                Because, you know, the universe is a cruel and capricious thing and why wouldn’t she hit the one fucking rock outcropping in this section of river? Cursing internally and trying not to swallow water, Clementine struggles to the surface, gasping for breath and holding her side. She’s sucked under half a dozen times, scrabbling and coughing, choking on water until she can finally force herself to stay at the surface. Still fighting the current, she manages to drag herself up onto the shore and fights to remain conscious once she’s there. If she’s going to die, she thinks, she’s going to die saving Earl, not from fucking massive internal bleeding from a fucking rock after falling from a fucking rope bridge. Fuck! Everything hurts. She staggers to her feet, panting, feeling nauseated.

                “Goddamn it,” Clementine gasps, holding her side and coughing up water. She feels the puncture wound where she had hit a sharp rock and knows she has to plug the wound before she bleeds out. She rips off a piece of her jacket and jams it in the hole. She’s wet and shivering, but she hardly notices the cold over the pain. She staggers up the bank, knowing the fall from the bridge has torn up her guts, knows it’s a fatal wound, but she won’t let herself die until she knows her friends are safe. Feeling suddenly woozy, she stumbles, falls. Sleeps.

\--

                “Well, that,” Clementine says, squirming a little bit as she rubs sleep from her eyes, “is a terrific way to be woken up.” She gives a little gasp and Earl pulls away, wiping the back of his hand across his mouth. He smirks, looking terribly pleased with himself.

                “Thought maybe you’d want to see the sunset, but I can keep going if you’re alright with missing out on such a thing of beauty,” he teases her in his low, gravelly voice. Clementine chuckles.

                “That mustache of yours is a thing of beauty. Sunsets are overrated anyway,” she reasons, tucking a strand of his blonde hair back behind his ear. He tugs her a little ways down the bed, nuzzling the inside of her thigh. “Let me turn on some music to set the tone,” she suggests. While there’s no cell reception because of cult jammers, but she had saved a lot of music on her phone. Earl chuckles from between her legs.

                “You know, you always put on country music.” Clem looks at him expectantly, and he bites her playfully on the inner thigh. “I was always more of a classic rock man, myself,” he tells her, kissing up her leg from thigh to calf.

                “You never said anything, I just assumed…” Earl meets her eyes with a playful look.

                “You know what they say about assumptions,” Earl continues, biting her calf gently.

                “Oh yeah, what _do_ they say about assumptions?” Clementine laughs, raising one eyebrow and cuffing him in the ear with her other leg playfully.

                “I don’t think I’ll get to keep doing this if I tell you,” he laughs, and pulls her up to kiss him.

                “Smart man,” she tells him when their lips part. “I think I’ve got some AC/DC on here, maybe some of The Eagles, hmm, let me see…” Earl snatches the phone from her hand and tosses it gently onto the desk.

                “Birds are singing. The wind’s blowing. We don’t need music, darlin’.” Smiling, Clementine kisses him again. He deepens the kiss, putting a hand behind her back to pull her close and….

                “Ooow!” Earl stops, looks surprised.

                “What? You alright?” Clementine grasps her side.

                “I don’t know. This isn’t how this happened, this isn’t…you’re not…”

                The scene, a pleasant morning from a few weeks before dissolves, falling apart as Clementine wakes up with a start.

                With a gasp, Clementine takes in her surroundings. She’s face down in the dewy grass, a line of ants marching merrily near her face. She jolts upright onto her elbows, but then stops, cries out in pain. It’s morning now, the sun has already lightened the sky. Shivering, she takes in the extent of her injuries, trying to clear her head. The cold was probably the only thing that saved her from dying while she slept, keeping her blood pressure low and her pulse sluggish. Everything still hurts. Cursing, she drags herself back to her feet. She looks up at the rope bridge, sees that Rogers is gone. She hopes he got help, but thinks it isn’t likely given that she woke up alone and still dying, no medical assistance in sight.

                Clementine has to get the fuck out of here and to Joseph’s compound as quickly as possible. Moving as quickly as she can, she lurches into the jail and alerts the on-duty guard of the attack and kidnapping, ignoring them when they ask if she’s okay. No, she is not fucking okay. What a stupid fucking question. As the news of Earl and Tracey’s kidnapping spreads, she can hear panic spreading with it, but she doesn’t have time to comfort people.

                The only time she can spare is time spent focusing on not dying.

                Clementine lets herself lean back for a moment, takes a deep, painful breath. It wouldn’t do either of them any good if she was dead before she got there. She lifts her shirt, looks at her torso again, dreading what she’ll see. It is mottled blue and yellow, with a little red thrown in for good measure. Scowling, she curses again when she sees the tear in her side from where the sharp tip of the rock pierced skin and muscle, the bandage had shifted. She grabs a tampon for lack of any better stuffing material and jams it into the hole with a shriek of pain, clenching her teeth so hard she’s fairly certain she’s cracked a tooth. Using several Ace bandages, Clem rewraps the whole fucking mess that used to be a perfectly good abdomen before some prick pushed her off a bridge. She knows she needs to stop cursing, needs to calm down but everything hurts so fucking bad and she’s lost a lot of time.

                Finally finding the keys to Earl’s truck, Clementine darts back out the door, she drags herself into Earl’s pickup, nearly flooding the engine in her haste. She coasts to the bottom of the hill and stops, gasping for breath. She puts on the parking brake and lets herself have a moment, feels a tear streaming down her cheek.

                Clementine had never shown Earl her book manuscript. Truthfully, she hadn’t thought about it in a couple of months, had kept it hidden in a drawer of the desk that had been designated hers while they stayed at the jail. Even after she’d found out about his odd little poetry hobby, she never felt confident in her own work, had always kept the manuscript under lock and key. Sure, she painted, and she was great with animals, but what she really wanted to do was write.

                If this were her book, Clementine thinks, she would have ended it differently. Good books end with the heroes alive and happy. Good books don’t let the bad guys win. Good books don’t kill off their main character, she reasons, as, after all, she is her own main character in this book called ‘life.’ Christ, that was cheesy, she derides herself. This is why you haven’t been published and this, she prods her side, is why you will never be. She gasps a deep breath, wincing.

                Clementine wishes she had shown Earl her book. When she had started it, years ago, it hadn’t had much depth, much life. But then she’d met him, and then he’d invited her to stay with him, to be safe. And then she’d fallen in love with him, hopelessly. Loving Earl had breathed new life into her work, had breathed new life into her. Once she met Earl, her main male character grew a life of his own, became the kind of guy every girl should want. He became a guy who actually gave a fuck about women, about their opinions and hopes and needs. He became a guy who listens, who is patient, who fights to keep you and doesn’t let stupid arguments end a relationship. He became a guy who didn’t just text at three a.m. to see if you were DTF. Her main male character became Earl.

                And so she wishes she had shown Earl her book so he could see the admiration she had for him in words she could not say in any way but prose. She wishes he could see who he is in her eyes.

                His laughter, soft and gravelly was like music to her ears. His eyes, those sometimes blue, sometimes green eyes were so warm, even when they were full of weariness, they were always happy to see her. His hands, rough, strong hands of a man who had done honest work were always so gentle, so loving when they were on her body, stroking through her hair, bumping over her hip, pulling her tightly to him. His warm, strong body was a rock, a source of comfort on cold, frightening nights, a thing to cling to. She pictures him in her mind, strong and brave and smart and she clenches her teeth. She has to see him again.

                “Come on, bitch. It’s ride or die,” she tells herself, knuckles going white on the wheel. “Let’s go.”

                There’s a massive _BOOM_ and a bright blaze of white.

                “Well, this day just gets better and better,” she gasps out, and she floors it.


	24. It Is Finished

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rook and the others race to the bunker and Earl tries to maintain composure. First portion set in 1997.  
> \--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

                Earl takes a sip of his whiskey, sucking a hard breath of air through his teeth at the burn. He wipes his mustache and looks down the bar. There’s a cute blonde there twirling a strand of hair around her finger. She winks at him, but he ignores her, looking away. A shrill squeal emanates from the barstool next to his as it is pulled out. Earl turns to look at who is joining him and it takes considerable effort of will, especially given that he’s at least two and a half sheets to the wind, not to roll his eyes.

                “Richard,” he says tersely.

                “Earl,” the man says, setting his beer bottle down. They sit in tense silence, ignoring each other for a moment before Richard apparently decides that he wants to pick a fight. “Rumor has it Jamila finally wised up and left your sorry ass,” he says dryly with a smirk that Earl instantly wants to punch off his smug face.

                “Is this what we’re going to do tonight, Dutch?” he asks, setting down his glass with a hard thud that draws the attention of most of the bar’s patrons. “We’re gonna fight?” Earl stares at him, hard. He really does not like this man. This crazy “sovereign citizen” motherfucker was an enormous pain in Earl’s ass and he wasn’t in the mood for it tonight of all nights. He had only recently been let out of jail for building a bunker on federal property. Evidently the one he’d built on his own property wasn’t enough. They’d only found the damn thing because some kids had stumbled across it and were playing with explosives they’d found inside. It was a good thing for Dutch that no one had been injured or killed.

                “I don’t appreciate you government shills comin’ on my land, Earl,” Richard “Dutch” Roosevelt says in his gravelly voice.

                “Dammit, Dutch, if I’ve told you once, I’ve told you a hundred times, a warrant gives us the right to search. Quit givin’ us a reason to check on what you’re doing and we’ll leave you the fuck alone. God knows I wish I never had to see your ugly face again.”

                “That’s not what your wife was sayin’ to me last night,” Dutch counters spitefully.

                It had been a bad day. I mean, a really bad day, one of those low down dirty, nasty, awful days that makes you wonder if the whole universe is dead-set against you. Jamila had served him divorce papers a week before and somehow the news had already made its way around town and everyone was talking about it now, both to his face and behind his back, speculating on why she was leaving him. Rumors abounded, but the favorite rumor, perpetuated by those who didn’t know him well, was that maybe he beat her, which hurt Earl deeply. He would never lay a hand on his wife, but he did have a bad temper and everyone knew it. It was something he was trying to work on, but lifelong behaviors based in childhood trauma were hard to break.

                Earl had slept badly on the couch the night before and was exhausted, dark rings printed under his green-blue eyes. He’d spilled coffee down the front of his Fall’s End PD uniform first thing this morning and things had gone downhill from there. Sharky Boshaw had taken a piss in the back of his patrol car when Earl had arrested him for disorderly conduct and he still hadn’t been able to get the smell out, even after using bleach. The whole goddamned day had been like this, bullshit calls with jackass people and situations that made Earl want to pull his thick golden-brown hair out. His bank account was frozen at the moment while assets were being assessed, so the only way he was drinking tonight was on a tab given to him on the understanding that it would be paid up as soon as possible. Gary Fairgrave is a real standup kinda guy, and a damn good bartender. Dutch though? Dutch is just a jackass.

                “Did you hear what I said, pig?” Dutch asks him, mean little eyes staring at Earl. “I said your wife didn’t mind my ugly face while I was fucking her last night. She told me it was the first decent fuck she’d had in ten years.” Earl closes his eyes and tries very hard to get a grip on his temper. He knows it’s not true. He knows Dutch is just lashing out because he too had experienced the pain of a wife leaving and he sees the opportunity to inflict damage on his enemy. Like any predatory animal, Dutch can recognize a wound that can be picked and scratched and widened into a fatal injury. He knows Earl’s pain. He knows he can use it against him, use it to get a rise out of him. And it does. God help him, it does.

                With a hard right hook, Earl slams his fist into Dutch’s jaw. In an instant, Dutch recovers and breaks his beer bottle over the top of Earl’s head. Earl sees stars, but it doesn’t stop him. With a roar, he grabs Dutch by the middle, slamming into him and taking him off his feet, landing hard on top of him. They roll around on the floor, spluttering and punching one other, fists flying madly as they roll in the broken glass and flat beer. Earl feels himself take a blow to the cheek that loosens a couple of his teeth and makes him bite his tongue hard enough to draw blood, but he’s mad and sad and feeling like beating someone’s ass and Dutch had been kind enough to give him the opportunity.

                Earl cracks his forehead into Dutch’s nose, both of them letting out snarling groans of pain. Dutch slings his weight, rolling on top of Earl and pummeling him as Earl tries to elbow him in the ribs. With the blows landing hard and frequent, Earl feels dazed, but isn’t ready to give up yet. With a mighty jerk, he slams his knee into Dutch’s backside and uses the man’s moment of surprise to dislodge him, the two rolling away from one another with heaving breaths. Dutch kicks out hard and lands the toe of his boot in Earl’s side forcibly enough that he’s fairly certain he felt a rib crack. Furious, he scrambles toward his opponent until a bucket of ice cold water splashes both of them and a familiar voice yells,

                “THAT’S ENOUGH BOTH OF YOU!” Breathing hard as he climbs back to his feet, Earl wipes blood out of his mustache and away from his chin as he looks over to Deputy Abraham Rook, who has his hands on his hips and is looking threateningly in both their directions like a mother dealing with two poorly-behaved children. Gary is standing just behind him holding a now-empty bucket that’s still dripping water from its rim. “If either of you throws another punch, I’m throwing you both in a cell for the night and you can finish sorting it out there,” he informs them, chiseled face furious. Dutch and Earl glare at each other for a long, long while before Dutch straightens.

                “Nah,” he says, wiping his bloody lip. “I’ve had my fun,” he growls. “But if that son-of-a-bitch comes on my property again, warrant or not, I’ll be pressing charges. Everybody in this bar saw who threw the first punch.”

                “Get the fuck out of here, Dutch. You incited it,” Gary snaps, setting his water bucket down on the bar top with a ringing bang. A murmur goes through the now-quiet bar and Dutch spits a mouthful of blood and saliva onto the floor.

                “Whatever,” he mutters and he steps out of the bar.

                “What the hell were you thinking, Earl? You’re a cop, for Christ’s sake. You know I oughta be arresting you right now,” Abe snaps.

                “Do or don’t, Abe,” Earl says flatly, holding his side tenderly. Abe sighs.

                “You’re done drinking for the night.” Earl looks at him sharply. “No argument. Come on. I just got off shift, I’m headed home. Guest bedroom’s all made up. Eve won’t mind, and you know Charity loves to pester you. Come on.” Seeing he’s not going to win this argument, Earl gets into Abe’s county squad car, happy, now that the pain has sobered him up a bit, that he’s in the front and not the back. “If you decide to run for sheriff like you’ve been talking about, you’re gonna have to stop being so fucking hot-headed,” Abe points out. Earl rolls his eyes and regrets it, both of them tender and starting to blacken. “Sometimes it’s best to leave well enough alone, Earl. That’s a lesson you’d go a long way in learning. That temper of yours is gonna get you killed one of these days.”

                It was the last fist-fight Earl ever got into with Dutch. It had been one of those eye-opening, rock-bottom moments that made him realize he wanted to be better, to do better. When he’d walked into Abe’s home, little seven-year-old Charity was still wide-awake, waiting for her dad to come home. Earl had stood behind Charity’s father sheepishly, feeling like a jackass. Young Charity had been upset, seeing “Uncle” Earl’s black eye and bloody, broken nose. She had tearfully asked why he had a boo-boo, did a bad guy get him, is he okay while gently touching a tiny hand to his cheek and his heart had melted. From that night, Earl had sworn to keep his temper in check. Over the next couple of years, he had managed to win back the respect of his community and was offered and officially elected Sheriff of Hope County.

\--

                Earl never did really get the respect he wanted from Dutch, and they never did learn to like each other, but still, he feels nothing but relief hearing the voice of his old enemy over the radio.

                “Jesus fucking Christ, kid! You see this shit? Wherever you are, whatever you’re doing, get to the goddamn bunker now!” Dutch’s voice yells over the radio.

                “It’s as good a place as any, Rook,” Earl agrees. He keys up his own radio, tunes it to wide-band. “Clem, Clem, if you’re out there and you can hear me, we’re headed to Dutch’s bunker on the southern island. If I don’t see you again…I love you.” The truck is surrounded on both sides with blazing wildfire, at least two mushroom clouds visible on the horizon. A car swerves madly around them going the opposite direction only to crash into a falling tree. Rook gasps and weaves through a pile of logs that have come unstrapped from a crashed logging truck.

                Pratt is sobbing in the backseat and Hudson is repeating a litany of “We’re gonna die, we’re gonna die, we’re gonna die!” while Joseph keeps singing “Amazing Grace” and through his terror the combination is making Earl want to pull the last of his hair out.

                “Get us to that bunker, Rook, go, go, go,” he yells as trees come down around them, deer scattering out of the forest, several of them on fire. There’s another blinding flash and boom and Rook brakes hard.

                “Oh Jesus, oh Jesus, oh Jesus!” Hudson screams. Rook shakes herself and accelerates again as the blinding white fades, leaving orange and flames in its wake.

                “Watch the road,” Earl urges, trying to be the calm in the storm, but he can hear his voice shaking. He can see Rook’s hands trembling violently on the wheel and he wishes he was the one driving, but there’s nothing to be done for it now. Dying, burning birds pelt the windshield, letting out gurgling croaks that do nothing to drown out Pratt’s frantic screaming.

                “Watch out!” Hudson warns as yet another flaming pine falls into their path. Rook swerves around it wildly and Earl grips the grab handle hard.

                “HE WAS RIGHT!” Pratt bursts out, “HE WAS FUCKING RIGHT!!!!!” Earl’s patience snaps.

                “SHUT UP, PRATT!” He yells encouragement to Rook, pointing out obstacles and swatting absently at the panicking Pratt, mentally swearing to punch his deputy as soon as they get to the bunker, just to knock some sense back into the kid.

                “We’re going to burn to death for our sins,” Pratt cries, more quietly this time, at least, “We’re gonna burn in hell for everything we’ve done!”

                “SHUT THE FUCK UP!” Hudson yells, also over Pratt’s insanity.

                “Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee,” Pratt starts chanting, even though Earl knows the kid is barely a C&E Catholic. “Blessed art thou among women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb…” Another explosion, another flash. Rook floors it, panting hard, her jaw clenched, knuckles white on the wheel. Earl feels himself shaking with terror. They aren’t going to make it. Clementine isn’t going to make it. They’re all going to die. “…Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death, Amen.”

                Earl finally sees the dirt and caliche road that leads to Dutch’s bunker and he taps Rook on the arm.

                “Turn, turn, turn!” he orders, and she obeys wordlessly, jerking the wheel to the right so hard the truck fishtails a bit. He sees, too late, that some of the ground has given way, leaving a void where once was road. “Hang on,” he shouts, crushing the grab bar with all his strength, legs and torso tightening in preparation for impact. The truck lands with a shudder, and Rook keeps her foot on the accelerator, tires spinning a bit before the vehicle lurches forward again, getting purchase on the powdery gravel that is all that remains of the road in this section. Earl unbuckles his seatbelt, ready to jump from the truck as soon as they arrive. Pratt lunges forward, all panic and madness.

                “We’re not gonna make it, we’re not gonna make it!” Pratt screams, distracting Rook.

                “Sit back!” Earl snaps, reining in his temper as Pratt shakes his shoulder frantically.

                “Look out, tree!” Hudson warns. Rook groans with effort as the back of the truck slides, trying to turn before the massive fir tree drops right in front of them. Too late.

                She hits it dead on.


	25. Don't You Wanna Stay (Reprise)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Clementine reaches Earl.

                Clementine has to see Earl one last time. Has to say goodbye. She turns toward Silver Lake, gunning it as flames start to engulf all the greenery around her. Amazingly, even after a massive fall and an involuntary dip in cold water, her radio squawks and she turns it up, swearing as the audio warbles through damaged hardware.

                “Jesus [static] Christ, kid! You see this shit? Wherever [static] you’re doing, get to the goddamn bunker now!” Dutch’s bunker. She steadies herself, accelerating, swerving around a falling tree. She hears another voice now and has to clench her jaw to prevent herself from crying, from breaking down. There’s no time for that.

                “Clem, Clem, if you’re out there [static] hear me, we’re [static] Dutch’s bunker on the southern island. [static] I love you.” She tries to key up her radio to answer, but the button is damaged. It’s a wonder it had even worked at all, but still, she curses the cruel irony of a universe that would let her hear Earl’s voice but be unable to speak to him. Steeling herself, she speeds down the rough road, ignoring the pain in her guts, ignoring the occasional bloody cough.

                Flames and smoke and panicking animals, some of them on fire, litter the roadway and she has to strain to see, nearly overcorrecting when more mushroom clouds appear on the horizon with an Earth-shaking BOOM for each one.

                Clementine makes it just in time to see Joseph Seed carrying Rook, closing the bunker doors behind him. Her stomach drops. She looks over at the cult pickup, sees the bodies still inside. Before she checks to see if anyone is still alive, she prioritizes seeing to the status of the bunker doors, banging on them and screaming. There is no answer. The doors are locked, barred from inside. There is no way in. Even if there is anyone alive in the truck, they’re doomed. Turning, she fills with dread as she sees Earl collapse off the roof of the truck with a hard thump when his body hits the ground. She runs to him.

                “You’re alive, oh Christ, oh God, you’re alive.” She can tell from the amount of blood dripping slowly from the cracked open truck door that Pratt is dead. One glance at the angle of Hudson’s head and neck confirmed her death as well. “Earl, oh God, Earl, sweetheart,” she blubbers, sees the cuts and the shredded shirt where he was flung through the windshield. There’s a deep laceration on the top of his head and he’s breathing in gasps like a fish out of water. She collapses to the ground next to him, pulls him over to her. He weakly grabs her hand, breaths coming hard and fast. She can see his pulse racing wildly at his throat. Flames are all around them now. There is no longer any escape.

                “You gotta go. You gotta get outta here, Clem. You gotta help the others.”

                “No, no, baby. I’m not here for any of them,” she says, the same words she’d spoken to him so long ago in a bar in another world. Her voice breaks. “I’m here for you. I,” she chokes a sob, “I’ve heard you’ve been having a rough time the past few years.” She laughs through a painful sob. “You’re here to protect. I’m here to serve.” She gives him a little sad smile and brushes a strand of his brown-gold hair out of his face. He smiles a little, remembering that night. A drop of blood trickles from the corner of his lip, sluggishly tracing its way down his chin.

                “Is Rook–” Earl has a sudden painful coughing fit, blood splattering onto Clementine’s face as she breathes with difficulty too, holding his heavy head in her lap. “Is Rook okay? Is she safe?” She looks him straight in the eyes, and she lies with every ounce of will she has left in her body.

                “She’s just fine, Earl. She’s fine. Everything’s alright. Shhh. It’ll be okay.”

                “I’m so tired, Clem,” he tells her, voice weak.

                “I know,” she says, tears trickling down her cheeks. There’s another ungodly _BOOM_ and burst of light to accompany it. She covers her eyes against the flash and the ground shudders beneath them. The flames are hot, and getting closer now. She ignores the agony of her own wounds, knows she’s bleeding out internally, but she can only care for Earl now. She pets his hair gently, shifting him in her lap so she can see the blue-green of his eyes better in the orangey light of the flames. His glasses are gone and he looks younger without them. The wrinkled skin around his left eye is badly bruised, the eye swollen almost shut, and she leans down painfully to kiss it.

                “I tried,” Earl gasps, “I tried to do the right thing, in the end. I shouldn’t,” he sobs out a painful hiccup, “I shouldn’t have left the cult alone. I should have fought them sooner, but…but it didn’t matter. None of it mattered.” His voice is thick with grief and pain, haunted and he tries to pull himself up, but his legs aren’t moving at all when he struggles.

                “No, no, shhhhh, it mattered. It mattered. There are bunkers all over this county, you know that. People will be safe, so much safer than they would have been if all the Seeds survived. Everything’s fine, sweetheart. Everything’s fine. Hey, hey, hey,” she says, patting his face gently when she sees his eyes rolling into unconsciousness, “do you remember that song that was playing the first time we made love, the night we met?”

                “I,” he goes into another painful coughing fit, gasping for air, “I remember. Of course, I remember. I love you so much, Clem. I love you,” he tells her, lifting a weak hand to her cheek. She holds it there.

                “So stay with me, please, please,” she begs him, seeing his eyes go distant, feeling his hand go heavy and limp in hers. “Don’t you wanna stay here a little while? Earl? Earl?!” She bends over him as he gives a couple of last, shallow breaths. “I love you. I love you, I will always, always love you,” she tells him, gasping for breath herself. Clementine gives a deep, exhausted sob, her eyes watering both from tears and from the smoke. She feels her insides, bruised and bleeding, touches a hand to her swollen abdomen, black brown with blood filling it and she coughs, staring at the flames, and the burnt-out truck and the dead deputies inside it. “I guess,” she says to no one in particular as she unwraps the bandage that has kept the bleeding concentrated inside her abdomen, “now’s as good a time as any to find out,” she takes a hard breath, choking and finding blood in her hand, “if there’s an afterlife.” She turns and looks at the bunker one last time, her last regret that she can’t save Rook. “Sorry, kid, you’re on your own.” Head feeling light and heavy at the same time, blood gushes from her wound, and she slumps forward over Earl, pulling his limp body deeper into her lap. Her vision goes dark and hazy, and then she sees no more.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm finishing up an epilogue that ties into another story I'm working on that gives this story a happy ending, so if you need a happy ending, it's coming today (05/15/2019) or tomorrow (05/16/19).


	26. Epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The happy ending some of us need. Ties into another story I'm working on that's a femJudge/femCaptain redemption arc for Rook.

                The first thing that tells Earl something is amiss is that his hat is missing. The next is that he has a full head of hair. He looks down and sees suddenly that his hat is in his hand, though he is certain it wasn’t a moment before. He plops it back on his head and stretches, the familiar pops and aches in his joints gone. He ties his thick golden hair back in a ponytail with a rubber band he is fairly certain hadn’t been on his wrist before either.

                “What in the blue blazes?” he mutters, unsure how he got here. He looks around. He’s standing on a dock at one of his favorite bends in the Henbane River to fish. The area is pristine. There’s no damage to it, no unnatural erosion, no litter. His favorite rod is leaning on the edge of the dock and his tacklebox is sitting next to it, rust spots gone.

                “Does this mean I win the religion debate?” a quiet voice says behind him. He turns and sees Clementine, young and lithe and whole.

                “Is this…?”

                “I don’t have any better explanation for it,” she shrugs. “Damn. You were hot in your twenties.” He runs a hand over his own chest, his own bicep, his mustache for good measure, notes the lack of age spots on the backs of his hands, on the renewed muscle definition.

                “Well, hot damn,” he murmurs. “Can I say that here?”

                “I have no idea. Let’s find out. FUCK!” Clementine yells out loudly. There’s no sudden gathering storm or voice of doom. “Want to see if anyone else is here?” she asks him. He looks longingly at the rod, but figures if this place is actually what they think it is, he’ll have plenty of time with it later.

                “Sure,” he agrees, and he takes her hand in his. They hike up the familiar hills, though the air is crisper and cleaner than either of them remembers. They take breaks at random intervals to kiss and caress one another, as if making sure they’re still real, still here.

                To their infinite relief, Spread Eagle is not packed with the newly dead, however, Mary May and her father are both there, as are her brother and her mother, all restored to their prime. Mary May smiles and waves to them both.

                “What’ll it be, Sheriff?” she asks. Bewildered, Earl looks at the taps, but they’re all vaguely out of focus. “I’m joking,” Mary May says. “It pours whatever it is you want to drink.” She grabs a shaker glass and pulls a tap. His favorite pilsner from Whistling Beaver Brewery. It’s crisp and malty and somehow much better than he remembers it, while also filling him with nostalgia.

                “Howdy, partner,” says a soft masculine voice. Earl turns and sees Abraham Rook, young and fit and alive again and he grabs him in a tight embrace. “It’s been too long, old friend,” Abe laughs, patting his back.

                “I guess they’ll let anyone in here,” Earl jokes after they part.

                “Who’s this?” Abe asks.

                “This?” Earl says, tugging Clementine forward gently and looking at her with a fondness that makes her heart ache and happy at the same time. “This is my fiancé, Clementine. She was…er…is…er…was one of Charity’s friends. And now she’s the love of my life. I guess literally,” he says a little sheepishly.

                “I’m still trying to figure out how I got here,” Earl admits.

                “Well,” Abe says, taking a drag of his beer, “The best I can figure it, you come here based on the merit of your time on Earth. If you fought for good, did right, well,” he shrugs his arms as though that explains it all, and Earl doesn’t feel like a philosophical discussion at the moment, just accepts it. He turns to Clementine.

                “So, want to take your beer down to the dock?” she asks with a grin.

                “I thought you’d never ask,” he says, and kisses her gently on the forehead.

\--

                Years pass like nothing and Earl finds himself back at the Spread Eagle with Clementine one rainy night, enjoying the sound of droplets pattering on the pavement and nursing a tasty hefeweizen as he watches re-runs of his favorite baseball game on the bar TV.

                The door swings open suddenly and an older, wiser looking Charity Rook steps in, wearing tattered brown homespun pants and a matching jacket with soft brown leather boots.

                “Rook?” Earl says in surprise and delight. She smiles widely.

                “Earl. Clementine. Have I got some stories for you.”

                “Well, sit down, kid. Your dad’s down at the…”

                “At the shop, with Nick, I know, just saw him,” she grins. “Mom was with him too.” The others that have joined them over the years greet her, patting her on the back, or hugging her where she tolerates it. She looks around a little distractedly as Sharky pours her a beer, only handing it to her after he has taken a sip of it and she gives him a dirty look before glancing to the door again. Sharky had shown up a few years ago, but amazingly he and Earl got along fine once municipal laws no longer needed to be enforced. Seeing Charity’s continued distraction, Earl pats her on the shoulder to get her attention. “Everything alright, Rook?” Earl frowns. Charity smiles and takes a long, deep drink of her beer, closing her eyes in ecstasy.

                “Everything’s great, Sheriff. Just waiting on someone.”

                “Well,” Clementine says, “While you’re waiting, pull up a stool and tell us all about her.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------  
> I'm not entirely happy with how this turned out, but I'm not sure how I want to change it yet since it's actually a tie-in with another story. Hopefully it wraps things up well enough for anyone who has stuck it out all the way through this completely unplanned mess of a story.
> 
> As always, thanks for reading! 
> 
> Enjoyed my work? Loved it? Hated it? Let me know in the comments!
> 
> You can also join me by following me on tumblr, which I just started using: https://ultrafinefeatheredfriend.tumblr.com/


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